


The Road After: Rain

by DemonzDust



Series: The Road After [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Action, Alternate 6B, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Bottom Theo Raeken, Dark Magic, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, FBI Agent Stiles Stilinski, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Grieving, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, M/M, Mystery, Redemption, Road Trips, Slow Burn, Top Scott McCall, Worldbuilding, sceo - Freeform, sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-04-28 12:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14448954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonzDust/pseuds/DemonzDust
Summary: The pack is dead and gone. After narrowly escaping a grisly death in the woods of rural Washington State, Scott and Theo look for clues about what is after them, and if it's connected with how the pack was killed. With guilt and grief keeping Scott from looking back, the only time he feels right is when he's protecting Theo. And being protected is not something Theo is familiar with.Meanwhile, Stiles Stilinski has abandoned his training at Quantico to search for his best friend. He’ll stop at nothing to find Scott, tracking him by whatever means necessary across the Pacific Northwest. The only trouble is - Scott doesn’t seem to want to be found. And Derek Hale just makes everything more difficult.Sequel to Ashes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
>  
> 
> This is sequel to The Road After: Ashes and it picks up shortly after it's events. 

The relief of finding the claw marks in the phone had been only momentary. Almost immediately Stiles found his chest filled with a fiery vigor. He knew Scott was out there, he just didn’t know where.

He’d phoned his dad immediately, letting him know where he was and that he was safe.

Mr. Stilinski had been less than pleased to hear that Stiles was back on the west coast.

“But I’m not crazy, dad!” Stiles had argued with him, his phone on speaker from the coffee holder as he sped up the highway, looking for any clues as to where Scott might have gone to. “I told you, there were claw-”

“There were  _ holes _ !” his father interrupted him. “ _ You _ say there are claw marks!”

“Yeah, but I heard Scott’s voice-”

“Breath! You said you heard his  _ breath _ ! That’s not the same thing!”

“Yeah, whatever, I know what my best friend’s breath sounds like on the phone Dad...”   


“Stiles, you listen to me right now. This is a delusion. A dangerous delusion. I understand that what happened is hard to accept but-”

“It’s  _ not _ a delusion!” Stiles insisted stubbornly, wrenching the phone out of the holder and up to his mouth so he could shout directly into it. “Scott is out there!”

“If that’s true then why hasn’t he contacted anyone?”

“He did! That phone call...”

“That random  _ misdial _ from another state! If it was Scott, then why didn’t he say anything? You’re not thinking about this rationally! You’re seeing just what you want to be true!”

Stiles bit his lip and dug his fingernails into the steering wheel.

That had been bothering him too. Why  _ had _ Scott not said anything?

“Maybe he couldn’t.” Stiles offered. “Maybe he was hurt, or had to run or-”

“Has it occurred to you ONCE that this might be a trap?!” His father shouted in now full-blown fury. “Stiles, I have lost a wife, my friends, and I’m close to losing my job right now as I’m trying to put together what happened and find those responsible. I am  _ not  _ about to lose my son in this mess because he can’t be enough of a man face the truth.  Now you turn that car arou-”

“You know what dad?” Stiles said, his lips so close to the phone they grazed against its glassy surface. “I think I’m going to have to hang up and grab a _Snickers_.”

“What? What the hell are you-”

“Because this conversation doesn’t seem like it’ll be going anywhere for a while.”

“STIL-”

He ended the call and stuffed his phone in his pocket.

He’d pulled off at the first rest stop that had wifi, sat down at a table with a cheap coffee, and pulled open his laptop.

He wasn’t tied to his father’s support anymore. He’s been at Quantico for a few months and had his own resources.

Well...he had someone’s resources at least. Those resources may be tied to the name of an instructor that’d been careless typing a password in front of a freshman, but for all intents and purposes, they were Stiles’ now.

Twenty minutes of furious clicking and typing later, he’d found exactly what he was looking for:

A credit card in the name of Melissa McCall, one that Stiles knew Scott always carried on him for emergencies, had been run in a McDonald's in Oregon, then at some motel in the Washington State mountains.

_ Has it occurred to you even once that this might be a trap? _

His father’s voice echoed in his ears as he punched the address of the motel into his phone, but he ignored it.

The following morning Stiles was swearing as his car groaned on the steep incline of the mountain road. It was a rental, a compact, the cheapest available at the airport, and the road seemed meant more for vehicles with four wheel drive.

“Oh  _ come on _ !” he whined when he turned onto the long drive lined with gravel.

Couldn’t Scott have found someplace a little more convenient? What the hell was he doing checking into a motel in Washington state to begin with?

He breathed a deep sigh of relief when the Motel sign came into view. 

He struggled to work the parking brake, then paused briefly to look at himself in the rear view mirror. 

He’d driven the entire night to get there, and the evidence was written all over his face as well as the backseat; dark circles lined his eyes and a collection of empty coffee cups and Red Bull cans littered the back seat.

He rubbed his face and his eyes furiously, but it only served to make them look more bloodshot.

Resigning himself that he was probably going to look like a madman, he sighed and made his way to the front desk.

“Hey there!” he said cheerfully to the middle-aged woman with sloppy bleached highlights reading a magazine at the desk.

She scowled at him.

“I um...” he said, stuffing his fingers into his pockets to keep himself from twitching nervously. “I was hoping that I could catch up with my friend. He checked in last night under the name McCall?”

“He’s already left.” she said, looking back down at her magazine. “Took off in the middle of the night making an awful racket. Didn’t even bother to return the keys.”

Excitement buzzed through Stiles body. 

Scott had been here.

He quickly dug his phone out of his pocket, nearly dropping it with his overtired hyper-caffeinated fingers.

“This guy, right?” Stiles breathed, holding up his screen with a picture of himself arm in arm with Scott.

It was a selfie taken the day of graduation. Stiles was making a ridiculous face, as he finger gunned at his own phone, but Scott had simply smiled into the camera.

The woman peered at the photograph with a crinkled nose.

“No.” she said flatly, and then reopened her magazine.

Stiles stomach dropped.

“No?” he repeated, his mouth dry.

No, that couldn’t be true. That phone call he’d received. Scott’s credit card. It had to be. It  _ had  _ too.

He felt sick.

Had he been wrong?

“Are-are you  _ sure _ it wasn’t him?” Stiles pressed stubbornly. “I-you know what, this really isn’t the greatest picture, let me show you another...”

“Young man, are you going to get a room here?” the woman interrupted, making no motion to look at the second picture. 

“I uh...” Stiles knew he had only another second before this woman threw him out or called the cops. “Yes, I am actually. Could I, uh, would it be possible to get the same room he had?”

It’d been less than twenty-four hours since someone had checked in with Scott’s card. Maybe there would be clues.

“Why?” the woman asked, suspiciously.

“Oh um, you, uh, know...”

The woman continued to stare at him, confirming that, no, she really didn’t.

“Can I just have it please?” Stiles asked, exasperated.

“You can’t.” the woman said, putting a key on the table for him. “It’s still being turned down and, like I already told you, he left with the keys, so I need to call a locksmith to get them replaced.”

Stiles looked down at the metal key on the desk. It was attached to a dark green plastic key chain with a gaudy white number seven on it.

“Great, I’ll pay by card.” he said, quickly dropping his own emergency credit card onto the table.

He was going to end up with quite a bill by the time he found Scott.

“But, um...” he started again. “I’m sorry, but could I please get a room with a different number? I just have this weird thing about the number seven...”

The woman didn’t even ask him why, and instead rolled her eyes before opening the drawer a second time.

When she did, Stiles leaned over to spy into the drawer.

As he suspected, it was filled with pairs of similar keys ordered by room number. There was only one set of guest keys missing: Room Eleven.

Right then.

He snatched up the key the woman gave him, but rather than checking in, went directly to the room he now strongly suspected was the one that whoever it was that had checked in with Scott’s name and credit card, had stayed in.

He looked both ways, and not seeing either the woman or a locksmith, pulled out his credit card again, and began to pick the lock.

It didn’t even take that much effort. This whole place looked like it’d been built in the sixties and then  _ never  _ changed. The new lock would undoubtedly be the first decent improvement the crummy place had seen in decades.

It clicked open in a moment, and Stiles invited himself in. It was a double, but only one of the bed’s had been disturbed at all. True to the grouchy woman’s word, it hadn’t been cleaned yet.

He flipped the light on and gently closed the door behind him before inspecting the room in more detail.

He inspected the bathroom and found a half used travel-sized tube of toothpaste and a stray Q-tip on the floor, as well as wrappers for several other travel-sized toiletries in the waste paper basket.

He hadn’t seen any purchases on the credit card that could have linked to these items. Either Scott had some cash on him, or this wasn’t his room.

He was about to check under the bed in search of over clues when he heard the doorknob rattling behind him. He froze for a moment.

_ The maid. _ He thought immediately.  _ Or the locksmith. _

He darted to the closet, slipped inside, and closed the cheap sliding door as quietly as he could.

If it was the locksmith then maybe he wouldn’t look in the closet.

There was a knock at the door, which Stiles found odd.

If it had been anyone sent by the woman at the front desk she surely would have sent them with a set of custodial keys?

_ Bang. Bang. Bang. _

Stiles jumped as the sound boomed louder this time.

That definitely wasn’t a service person.

The door smashed open and Stiles fingers fumbled to find the brand new firearm he’d concealed in his jacket. He was by no means in the top of his class with the field stuff, but he at least new how to use it. Sort of.

He’d once gotten a shot off without closing his eyes.

The gun clicked loudly in his hands as he removed the safety, and he heard the man or whatever it was on the other side of the flimsy sliding door stop.

_ Crap. _

“ _ Arrrghhh _ !!!” Stiles screamed, throwing the door open so hard it caught in its track. “ _ HANDS IN THE AIR!! _ !”

Immediately a clawed hand wrapped around his throat, he was ripped from the closet and slammed against the opposite wall. A picture of a generic potted plant clattered down from the wall and his gun fell to the floor, useless.

Perfect FBI  _ A+ _ material. Maybe next time, for extra credit, he could manage shoot himself in the ass. 

“Glad to see the future of the FBI is in good hands.” 

Stiles recognized the voice and opened his eyes.

He hadn’t even realized that he’d closed them again.

“Derek?” Stiles breathed a shocked sigh of relief as a familiarly grim and annoyingly attractive face scowled back at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I came here to find  _ you _ .” Derek said, releasing him and Stiles scrunched his nose as he straightened his shirt. “Your dad sent me.”

“ _ Awesome _ .” Stiles said, pushing Derek’s arm so he could move past him and continue to inspect the room. “So you do my dad’s babysitting now, then?”

“No.” Derek said, refusing to move his arm. “He sent me to bring you  _ home _ . You’re not protecting anyone out here on this ridiculous crusade. All you’re doing is making your Dad a wreck. You think you’re the only one upset about this? You think you were the only one that cared about them?”

Derek’s nostrils flared in anger. His brows knitting together even tighter as his voice grew louder. And Stiles had to fight the urge to not shrink back against the wall.

He wasn’t giving sour puss the satisfaction in scaring him. Or at least not the satisfaction in  _ knowing _ that he’d scared him.

“Listen, the world doesn’t work the way you think it does!” Derek railed at him. “Like it or not, nothing you can do will will fix this! They are  _ dead _ ! Scott is  _ gone _ ! He’s...he’s....”

Stiles watched Derek’s nose twitch, his eyes widen.

Stiles didn’t need to hear Derek say it to know what it was.

“You can smell him, can’t you?”

 

*     *     *

 

Theo watched the thin bands of steam rise up and dance along the rim of Scott’s mug as he brought it to his lips. The dim red light of the roadhouse framed Scott’s profile with deep colors and stark shadows. Theo’s gaze lingered on his dark lashes as he closed eyes and took a long and appreciative sip.

He looked displaced against the rough atmosphere of politically incorrect posters and glowing beer labels that hung behind him. He was too collegiate and unmacho to fit with them. Even if the worn look on in his features matched the battered wooden walls, he was too clean for the place. Too wholesome.

_ Too perfect _ . Theo found himself thinking, against his will.

Scott opened his eyes and Theo quickly looked down at the dark liquid swirling in his own mug.

He blew along it’s surface before chugging down several long gulps. The food had been too heavy and greasy for him to stand the thought of putting a creamer in it, and it was terribly bitter just on it’s own but he needed the caffeine.

They’d spent most of the day in a tiny cramped small town library, which meant that they would be spending most of the night on the road. Unlike nights previous, he wouldn’t be sleeping while Scott drove because this time they actually had a destination in mind, and Scott would need his help navigating.

It’d been four days since their encounter with that man in the woods, for lack of a better word, and Theo had pulled together as many relevant details about the matter that he could. The license plate on the truck, the serial number on the Desert Eagle (that currently lay tucked away in Theo’s duffle bag in the car) what he could remember from the sigils on the man’s arm as well as the patterns hammered into the bed of the truck.

He’d scribbled replicas of the sigils to the best of his ability on notebook paper with a pen, and he was reasonably certain they were accurate with a small amount of marginal error. The Surgeon often expected him to remember details like that. It wasn’t something that Theo had found easy or natural, but as failure to remember often lead to painful experiences, he’d made it his business to improve. Now he could recite serial numbers out to fifteen digits with only a glance, remember any phone number after having heard it once, and could re-create up to around five lines of text in languages he had no idea how to speak.

He’d hoped to use Scott’s phone to do some further research and figure out what in the hell that man had been and how he’d been able to find them in the middle of nowhere, but had been sorely disappointed when they’d stopped at a second dingy motel and charged it only to find it was broken beyond use.

Which was what had lead to them to the Hillville Washington Public Library, a small and dusty building with only three computers, slow internet, and a shoddy printer that was missing blue ink from its cartridge. But hey, it had the largest VHSs collection that Theo had seen since middle school. Yay, Hillville.

But despite the impediments, Theo used the computers to search missing persons files till he found a match for the girl he’d seen in the truck.

The one with the orange nail polish.

Her name was Jennifer Kiely, and she’d been seventeen when she went missing about a year and a half ago. Local papers had covered her disappearance, listing all sorts of irrelevant details such as her breaking up with her boyfriend and the fact that she’d just quit cheerleading several months before her disappearance.

What the papers had not covered, was the fact that she’d gone missing the night of a new moon. Also a fun fact, the night that the hunters struck Beacon Hills, that had been a new moon as well.

Scott had helped some in the library, but he wasn’t as fast or meticulous with research as Theo was, and when Theo had turned around he’d caught him staring blankly at the Facebook login in page. He’d watched Scott stare at it motionless for a few minutes, before intentionally clearing his throat and asking him to help him with something else.

He knew what that had been about. Scott wanted to check on Stiles and see how he was doing. Theo still wasn’t sure if Scott had managed to talk to Stiles that first night at the payphone, and he wasn’t about to ask anytime soon for fear of having another argument.

“So, do you know what roads we should take?” Scott asked him, and Theo finally lifted his face up from his drink.

“Oh, uh, yeah, mostly...” Theo said, pulling a folded map out from his notebook. “According to tourist websites, High Falls is a in the mountains ‘just outside of Seattle’ but these travel sites tend to have a funny idea of what ‘just outside’ means, because it’s  _ many  _ hours away from Seattle.”

Scott picked up his coffee and slid into Theo’s side of the booth so they could peer at the route together.

Theo felt a hum of excitement move through his body as Scott moved closer, but kept his eyes trained down onto the map. He had to consciously keep his pulse steady, as if he were trying to tell a lie. 

That was the other complication that had arisen over the past several days, and unlike the man with his truck full of dead bodies, Theo had  _ no idea _ what to do about it.

It was confusing and made him feel slightly pathetic, but ever since Scott had taken his hand and drawn the pain out of his arm, Theo’s skin had ached to feel Scott’s touch again.

Before his time beneath the ground Theo had never craved touch, only tolerated it. Or maybe he’d wanted it a long time ago and just couldn’t remember. He had vague memories of reaching for his mother's arm, crying for attention. So he must have wanted something like that once.

“Why is this town on tourist sites?” Scott inquired, scrunching his brow as he studied the lines of the map.

He was so close Theo could feel the rippling heat of his body. It prickled up Theo’s neck, smoldered along his skin, and affected him deeper than it had any right to.

“Skiing.” Theo explained, doing his best to ignore the sensation. “It also has a decent sized waterfall, which is how it got its name, but hard to imagine what people do with that other than just look at it for a few minutes and then go on with their lives.”

“How far from where we are now?”

“A ways.” Theo said, draining what was left in his cup. “And we need to stop at a Best Buy or someplace too.”

“Why?”

“Because as much as I  _ love _ doing research on shitty library computers that still run _Windows ‘98_ and reading you directions from a map, I think we need to get some prepaid burner phones.”

With that he waived for the check. He’d said it sarcastically, but in truth he really didn’t mind the direction-giving all that much. Conversation was still slow and difficult between them, and it was nice to have something to force them to break the silence. When the waitress set the check down on the table Theo passed it to Scott and began gathering up the things he’d paged through while waiting for their food.

He slipped the map back into his notebook, and closed the large hardcover encyclopedia on runes. He’d hadn’t found any matches with the markings he’d scribbled out yet.

“Theo...” Scott’s eyes followed his motions and settled on the blue sticker on the book’s spine with Dewy Decimal System coding on it. “Where did you get that?”

“The language section.” he offered, casually stuffing them into his bag. “Why?”

“How did you check it out if you don’t have a library card?”

Theo looked at him.

“Are you serious right now?” he asked. “How do you think I did it?”

Was Scott really going to bust his balls over a stolen library book?

“How are you going to return it if we’re never coming back here?”

Yes. Apparently, he was.

“Um...I’ll mail it I guess.” Theo said with frustration. “But seriously, no one in that bumfuck town is going to miss it. I doubt half of Hillville can  _ read _ much less-”

“It wasn’t yours.” Scott insisted.

“Okay.  _ Whatever _ .” Theo fought the urge to roll his eyes. “I said I’d mail the fucking thing. It probably won’t be any real help anyway. Can we  _ leave _ ?”

“Yeah, after we  _ pay _ our bill.” Scott said pointedly.

At that, Theo did roll his eyes.

They made their way to the bar to settle up. Unlike the quiet corner they’d been nestled in, the bar wasn’t deserted. Several large and rough looking men were swilling down cheap whiskey in dirty rocks glasses. Theo could hear them muttering gruffly to one another about him and Scott as they approached.

He was eyeing the gun holstered on one of their hips, when he felt Scott’s hand on his elbow moving him closer to the register while the bartender rang them up.

For a moment he was confused, unsure why Scott had moved him. The way Scott had done it made him think that he was in the way of wait staff, but when he turned his head he saw nothing. Scott kept his eyes on the bartender, who was still running their credit card, but he shifted his posture so that he was standing directly between Theo and the men at the bar.

_ Protecting me. _ Theo realized, suddenly.  _ He’s protecting me. _

They made it to the car without incident, but Theo’s head was still grappling with the realization.

Being protected, much like having his pain taken, was not something he was used to.

And it made him feel oddly more inclined to mail the damn library book.

 

*     *     *

 

Stiles had to admit, traveling with Derek had it’s benefits. His presence relieved at least some of his father’s concern, Stiles was able to return his shitty rental car in favor of riding shotgun in the Camaro, and Big Bucks could easily afford all the hotels and the necessary caffeine to keep them on the move.

But as much as Stiles’ nearly maxed out credit card thanked him for Derek’s presence, there were also some frustrating drawbacks. Namely, that they had conflicting opinions on who was leading the investigation, and who was the support.

“It’s not an _ investigation _ .” Derek had growled at him the first time Stiles tried to pull authority on him. “We’re just trying to find out what happened so we can track him down.”

“That’s the definition of  _ investigation _ , genius!” Stiles had shot back at him, right before letting out sharp cry of pain as Derek slapped his hand away from the sound system. “Ow! What the hell was that for?!”

“Don’t touch my things.”

“This entire car is your thing!”

“Then don’t touch  _ anything _ .”

“I have to touch  _ some _ things! What am I supposed to do, just let my ass hover up over the seat the whole way?”

They couldn’t even agree on what to call the escapade, and that wasn’t even the worst of their problems.

Despite having had a year away from Beacon Hills to straighten himself out, Derek was still a brooding, sulking, pain in the ass. He had a scowl set so deeply into features that it was nearly a permanent fixture on his face, and his contributions to conversations mostly consisted of bossy commands (usually accompanied with a “Your father sent me here to watch you, so you have to listen or I’m dragging you back to Virginia!”) and constant unrelenting pessimism.

Stiles much preferred himself to be the source of pessimism, but in the face of Derek he was forced uncomfortably into the role of the optimist. It didn’t suit him, but if he followed any of Derek’s advice he might as well just give up altogether.

Stiles was just as aware as Derek was that chasing Scott through his credit card use would be difficult. Scott seemed to changing his direction at the drop of a hat and taking strange detours. There was no discernable method to the madness that Stiles could find, and Scott didn’t stop at a Motel every night either.

Also there was the fact that Scott’s credit line would eventually run out, and then, they’d be fucked. But that wasn’t going to stop Stiles from trying. Scott didn’t have a cellphone on him, didn’t have any contacts in the area, so the credit card was all they had to go on.

Derek had tried to contact some of his own connections, to see if any of them had come across a werewolf matching Scott’s description, but for some reason, he wasn’t able to reach any of them.

Which wasn’t exactly encouraging. The FBI was investigating several other acts of violence along the west coast, mostly fires, that occurred the same night Beacon Hills was hit. It was hard not to see the connection there.

Yet, Derek felt the need to remind Stiles of the challenge in their circumstances  _ constantly _ .

The first day in Derek’s company had still been a relief from the lonely and desperate crusade. 

On the second day, Stiles was still of the opinion that having a partner with a wallet and sharp teeth was a lot better than a partner with neither, or no partner at all.

On the third day, his appreciation began to wane. By mid day, he found himself thinking that if Derek pointed out  _ one more _ thing that stood in their way in his aggressively smug tone, he might actually take a physical swipe at him and risk the backlash.

But it was also on the third day that he received a message from Scott. Not his scent, not him coughing into into the receiver of a payphone. An actual message.

His heart leapt when he received a text from his dad letting him know that Scott had left a voicemail for him on their home phone. He found it strange that Scott would have called that line, but he would take it.

His fingers shook as he dialed the number for their voicemail. He was so eager to hear Scott’s voice. To hear what he had to say. Where he was, if he was okay. Why he hadn’t said anything on that first call.

Stiles waited impatiently as the robotic voice told him that the message had been left at 2:13pm on a weekday. 

He scrunched his nose at that. He couldn’t understand the logic. Why would Scott call their home line at a time that he knew neither him or his father would be there to answer?

“What’s he saying?” Derek interrupted, impatiently.

“I’m trying to hear!”

He pressed his ear to the phone, he heard Scott taking in a deep breath, he held his own as he listened. There was a long pause, and then the voicemail ended. 

Stiles quickly skipped to the next call, that had been placed at 2:14. The same thing. A long pause, some stressed breathing, and then a rushed disconnect.

The third message was dated a few minutes after that, at 2:19.

This time, he finally heard Scott’s voice.

“ _ Stiles... _ ” his broken, strained voice crackled. “ _ Stiles, it’s me. _ ”

Stiles mouth went dry. It was Scott. It was definitely Scott. But it didn’t sound like him. His voice was heavy and dark, like Stiles had never heard before.

Emotion began to well in Stiles’ chest. Regardless of how broken he sounded. That was Scott. His best friend. One he’d thought he would never hear the voice of again.

“ _ Stiles I’m...I’m sorry. They...I couldn’t.. _ .” Scott stammered and tears slipped down Stiles face.

He quickly turned his head away from Derek as he continued to listen. There was another long pause before Scott continued.

“ _ I...I just...please, please just stay safe. I’m sorry. I’m...sorry. _ ”

There was a strangled sob, and that was it.

Stiles stood with the phone plastered to his ear for several long moments. Derek was leering impatiently beside him, but he ignored him as he struggled to process what’d he’d just heard.

Scott was alive, presumably not being held at gunpoint. He was distraught, but not necessarily in immediate danger.

The call had told him almost nothing. 

Except that Scott could have talked to him days ago. Could still talk to him.

Rage and bitter anger swelled inside of him.

Scott had intentionally placed that call when he knew Stiles wouldn’t be around to take it. 

He’d done it on purpose. Because he didn’t  _ want  _ to talk to him.

Derek swiped the phone from his hands and played the message for himself. His brow furrowed deeply as he listened.

“He’s not doing so good.” Derek commented after a moment.

“ _ Yes _ .” Stiles said, seething as he yanked the phone back. “ _ Thank you _ , Derek. I got that...”

Derek looked at him, as if he were confused.

“You don’t  _ look _ like you got it.”

“I just found out that my best friend would rather let me think he was dead for five days than talk to me.” Stiles fumed at him. “So  _ excuse me  _ if I don’t  _ look _ the way you’d like me to in this moment!”

Derek tilted his head to the side, teeth clenched. Stiles could see his fingers curling into a fist at his side.

“ _ That’s _ what you think after hearing that?” Derek challenges him, far more incensed than Stiles felt he had right to under the circumstances. “You think this is all about you, don’t you?”

Stiles could hardly believe his ears.

Scott wasn’t  _ Derek’s _ best friend.  _ Derek _ hadn’t just lost all of his other friends.

“And what?” Stiles voice shook with rage. “This is somehow about _ you _ ?”

“Not me,  _ him _ !” Derek pointed at the phone. “He’s not thinking clearly. It isn’t that he doesn’t  _ want _ to talk to you, it’s that he  _ can’t _ !”

“He could have. He had to know I’d be devastated over him. He  _ had  _ to.” Stiles said, fighting further tears from dripping down his face.

But it wasn’t just that. It was that Scott didn’t  _ want _ to. He was in pain, and instead of coming to his best friend with it, knowing that he wanted to feel it with him and work through it together, he was running from him.

And that hurt.

“You still don’t get it.” Derek insisted.

“Oh, fuck you, Derek.” Stiles said, wiping his eyes as he pulled open his laptop. “I have to trace where that call came from.”

Derek snapped Stiles laptop shut.

“You’re not doing  _ anything _ until you hear what I’m saying.”

“Are you serious? Every second matters here!”

“I’m not helping you find Scott if you’re going to act like this.”

“Like what?” Stiles demanded. “Like I’m hurt that my best friend doesn’t want to be near me after everything that happened?”

“Like a self-centered  _ child _ .” Derek spat back at him. “You don’t have any idea what he’s going through right now, he lost his mother-”

“YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE?” Stiles shouted so loudly he felt light-headed.

“NOT WHEN YOU KNOW IT’S YOUR FAULT!” Derek shouted back and the windows shook. 

“Yes you know what it’s like to lose someone and that sucks, but you can’t just look at this and assume that you know what it feels like because you don’t! You don’t know what that feels like! You should be thankful to God that you don’t and stop assuming that you know what everyone else is going through all the time!”

Silence filled the car. Derek took several long breaths. Stiles bit his lip.

They didn’t say anything for several moments after that.

Stiles didn’t want what Derek said to be true. He understood people. He knew what pain felt like.

Was maybe that the reason that Scott didn’t want to talk to him? Did Scott also think that he wouldn’t understand?

He looked bitterly at Derek’s hand, that was still holding his laptop shut.

“It isn’t his fault though.” Stiles said eventually.

“It’s because of him.” Derek said heavily. “They targeted his mother, Mason, Liam, because of him. And your Dad told me how it happened. How they lured him outside of town on his own. How he fell for it. How unprepared he was.”

“It’s just as much my fault.” Stiles said, his fingers clenched together. “I wasn’t there.”

“But he’s their alpha.” Derek insisted. “Losing a beta, it’s worse than losing a parent. Everyone knows they will have to part with their parents. Losing a beta is like losing a baby...and no one should ever have to go through that.”

 

Stiles didn’t say anything after that.

 

*     *     *

 

Scott couldn’t tell how far they were up the mountain, as he navigated the Civic through hairpin turn after hairpin turn, but when he felt his ears pop, he knew it must be quite high. Soft and gravely thunder rumbled in the distance and thick sheets of fog slipped down sloping dark green mountain sides around them.

“That’s it.” Theo pointed towards a sign and Scott turned onto another windy road flanked by tall pines that loomed over them in the mist.

Theo had his window cracked so the cool damp air flooded the car and sharpened Scott’s senses. 

Tiny droplets of water speckled down onto the windshield as the road leveled out and wound into the town of High Falls. The main drag was full of well-kept timber storefronts and lodgings. Theo directed him past shops with carved wooden bears and other vaguely Native-American looking, and onto a residential side road.

By the time they their destination, water was pouring out of the sky and washing down the sides of the car.

Jennifer Kiely's house was sturdy two story colonial structure tucked into the woods just on the skirts of the town. Even through the heavy rain, Scott could see blurry golden light glowing in several of the windows as as they crawled up the block towards it. 

“Nice house.” Theo mused, as he unbuckled and zipped up his jacket.

Scott didn’t really think it looked that nice. It looked like a place that  _ had _ been nice once. There was nothing cheerful or lifelike about the grassy lawn or bleak white walls to him. Theo never seemed to notice things like that. 

“So, what’s the plan?” Scott asked as he killed the engine. “What are we going to say to them, exactly?”

Scott couldn’t imagine that Jennifer’s grieving parents were going to be willing to talk about their daughter’s disappearance with two strangers that looked just barely out of their teen years themselves.

“Don’t worry about it.” Theo said, opening his door and popping open an umbrella. “It’s just the mother and little brother home, I think. I’ll get her distracted and you check out Jennifer’s room. Since they never recovered her body, chances are it’s still intact.”

Scott still didn’t like the idea of interrupting their grief. It wasn’t like anything they could do would be of help to Jennifer. But they couldn’t leave that man out there, and they wouldn’t be able to face him unless they knew more about what he was.

He pulled out his own umbrella and followed Theo up the front steps.

“Hello?” a middle aged woman answered the door. She had dark brown hair and honey-colored eyes, just like Jennifer had in her photos.

“Mrs. Kiely?” Theo asked, an earnest and polite expression on his face. “I’m really sorry to trouble you...”

The woman’s expression faltered immediately. Her eyes darted from Theo to Scott, as if she already knew what they were about to ask.

“My name’s Jude, and this is my friend. We’re from Windchapel, a town a few hours south of here.”

Mrs. Kiely said nothing, just continued to eye them, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

“We were hoping that we could ask you a few questions, about your daughter that went missing a few years back?” Theo went on. “I know you’ve already talked to the police, but-”

Mrs. Kiely looked like she was about to slam the door right in their face.

“But my sister went missing a few months back, and I think there may be a connection.” Theo rushed out, and the woman paused. “The police don’t think that they’re connected but I do.”

Scott stared.

_ That _ was Theo’s plan?

“Look, boys.” Mrs. Kiely said painfully. “I’m sorry, but you should go to the police. There’s nothing I can help you with.”

She moved to close the door but Theo quickly interjected.

“ _ Please _ .” Theo said, his voice breaking into what Scott was sure was a very carefully practiced desperate tone. “Please, just a few minutes. We have gone to the police, they don’t believe me. I know it’s a long shot, but I just couldn’t live with myself if I left any stone unturned.”

Sympathy flickered in Mrs. Kiely’s eyes, her hand still lay on the half-closed door.

“This is her.” Theo said, pulling a worn-looking photograph of a girl from his wallet.

He held it up so the woman could see, pleading at her with his eyes. His face the perfect image of a desperate grieving brother, seeking only some closure for his tragedy.

Scott’s fingers curled into a tight fist and he had to force himself not to glare daggers in Theo’s direction.

Mrs. Kiely caved. She invited them in and offered them tea. Before long, they were sitting in her parlor, and Scott was watching ‘grieving brother Jude’ expertly extract information from her.

Theo was good at what he did, but watching him do it was sickening.

How he so easily took advantage of her sympathy and kindness. How her grief for her daughter, that Theo  _ knew _ was lying cold and dead in the back of rusty truck somewhere, was nothing more than a weakness for him to exploit.

And to come up with that cover about him looking for his  _ sister _ of all people. That he could so easily do that without a shred of remorse. That it was as easy for him as batting an eyelash. It wasn’t just callous. It was  _ disturbing _ .

Thankfully, he didn’t have to stay to witness the entire conversation. He quickly excused himself to the restroom, and didn’t even have to lie about feeling nauseous. 

He quietly treaded up the carpeted staircase onto the second floor. It came to a long hallway lined with cedar doors. He could hear Theo and Mrs. Kiely still speaking downstairs, and the younger brother punching buttons on what was no doubt a video game controller in one of the bedrooms. He could hear the faint sounds of the game buzzing in the boy’s headset. No one was going to interrupt him.

He knew which room had been Jennifer’s instantly. The sadness in the chemosignals that hung around the closed door, the looming sense emptiness he felt behind it. It was more than obvious.

_ Forgive me. _ He thought as he turned the doorknob and pushed his way into the dead girl’s room.  _ I’m only trying to help. _

It was strange that walking uninvited into the space of girl that was no longer living, felt more invasive to him than any trespassing he’d done to those that were still alive. But it did. 

This room and it’s memories was all that was left of Jennifer.

It was dark almost on the other side of the door. The closed windows and the grey sky outside offered little light. The room was clean, still, and quiet. A white wooden desk lay across from a bed with a rose-colored flower pattern sprawling across it. A glitter lamp and alarm clock stood on a bedside table next to a shelf full of school books and paperback teen romance novels with broken spines.

The windows were lined with pink curtains, and several star-shaped purple glass ornaments hung across the top from a long piece of yarn.

Scott tried to feel traces of Jennifer, but he struggled to find her. It had been a little over eighteen months since she had been in the room, and although her things were mostly untouched the presence of her family in the room was suffocating.

Scott could feel the restless path her father took across the floor, from the window to the desk. Back and forth, again and again and again. He could tell exactly how her mother sat on the bed, day after day, bent forward with her face in her hands. He could even tell how her brother would creep into her room late at night when his parents were sleeping, and would just sit in the chair by her desk, motionless.

He pushed harder. She _ had _ to be here. She couldn’t just be erased under her family’s grief. She had to be here somewhere.

He moved over to the bookshelf and ran his fingers along the peeling spines. He closed his eyes. He breathed everything in his mind out, and he found her.

Warm. Funny. Sarcastic.

He followed that feeling. 

Stress. Anxiety. Secrets.

There was something hidden in the room. Something Jennifer didn’t want her family to find.

Scott opened his eyes, walked to the center of the floor where his gaze fell on a purple rug.

He peeled it back and found himself looking at a deep set of grooves in the wooden floorboards.  _ Clawmarks _ .

He knelt and ran his fingers along their course edges. Her feelings swam through his blood. Her confusion. Her struggle. Her first transformation. 

He replaced the rug as it had been and made his way over to the window.

There was something else.

He ran his fingers along the sill, stared out into the dark trees and pouring rain. A strong wind pushed up against the window and the glass ornaments above him clinked together. They smelled like cloves and salt.

_ Wait. _

Scott looked up at them again. Reached up and took one in his hand, feeling where her hands hand touched the string as she tied them up. She hadn’t hung these as decoration. They were hung for a reason. Something was after her, and she knew it. These were supposed to help.

Silently apologizing to her ghost again, Scott carefully removed one of the stars and stowed it in his pocket. He could examine it later.

He left the room, closed the door gently behind him, and was about to descend the stairs when a second door cracked open.

“Who the hell are you?”

Scott paused with his hand on the banister, turned over to face the boy, and froze in place.

He was Liam’s age, maybe a year or two younger. Dark hair fell into sharp and accusatory eyes as he leaned, arms folded against the doorframe to his room. His nose was pointed much like Liam’s and he had a pissy expression on his face.

Scott felt as though all the organs in his body had turned to jelly.

“Well?” the boy pushed. “Who the hell are you, and what the hell are you doing in my house?”

“I-um-” Scott stammered. “My friend and I, we’re here to talk to your mom.”

“About?”

“About, well...” Scott struggled to find words.

His arms ached. His mouth felt dry. There was a horrible tugging sensation in his chest that turned to a biting pain. He felt a nearly-crippling urge to hug this boy, whom he did not know, and who would definitely not appreciate it.

He must have taken too long to explain himself because soon the boy was calling downstairs for his mother.

“Mom!” he shouted with irritation. “Who is this fucking weirdo in our house?”

The chatter of ‘ _ Jude’ _ and Mrs. Kiely’s voices from downstairs ceased abruptly.

 

*     *     *

 

Theo let out a frustrated sigh as Scott and an extremely unpleasant looking teenage boy came down the stairs.

“ _ Daniel _ .” Mrs. Kiely objected. “ _ Language _ !”

“That’s okay.” Theo said quickly setting his half-full teacup down on the coffee table and rising up. “I know these questions are invasive, and we’ve taken up enough of your time. Thank you, really, I think those were all of my questions.”

Scott looked as though he’d seen a ghost. His face looked pale, his features contorted in a way that made it look like he might vomit at any moment. 

It was obviously time for them to leave. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive comments, thoughts, etc. are always appreciated. ^_^
> 
> I'm aiming for weekly updates on this one, and it'll either be 4-5 chapters long, depending on how it goes.


	2. Chapter 2

Theo turned the dark purple glass star over in his hands, examining it. There was something earthy inside its center, giving it that distinct scent, and he was certain there was a way to open the ornament without breaking it.

Scott stared impatiently at him from a dark leather arm chair. The clatter of the coffee house around them provided a warm buzz of background sound, as did the storm that continued to rage outside, but Theo could still hear Scott’s fingernails impatiently tapping against the clay mug in his hands.

Despite the rushed manner in which they’d had to leave the Kiely residence, the trip had still managed to be very productive. They’d learned that Jennifer had been a werewolf, that her family was unaware of it, and that someone or something had been after her. The presence of the charm also indicated some understanding of mystical workings, or perhaps, the presence of an Emissary.

Yet, Theo couldn’t shake the feeling that Scott was angry with him for some reason.

Scott had looked distraught when they left. It had taken him several moments to express everything that he’d learned, and refused to talk about what he’d done to set the brother off the way he had.

Theo’d been ready to let all that lay, but as they drove back into High Falls in search of a place with free wifi, Scott had seemed to recover from whatever shock he’d encountered and Theo couldn’t help but notice that his mood had seemed to sour towards  _ him _ in particular. He just couldn’t understand why.

Scott was short and curt with him, much the way he had been at the beginning of their journey, and Theo had thought they were past that.

What had he done?

The star clicked in Theo’s hands and he fished out a large and prickly round spore. It had been split in half, filled with spices and herbs, and then wrapped back together with with some type of hemp string.

“What is it?” Scott asked, leaning forward in his chair.

“Not sure.” Theo said, turning it over again in his hands. “You said that it felt like she’d placed it there for protection?”

“Yeah.” Scott nodded, his jaw tense. “But I don’t think she made it herself. Just hung it.”

“Which means she has some kind of help.” Theo affirmed. “Also the man with the truck, he forced mistletoe down my throat. I think it’s safe to say that there must be some kind of Emissary involved in all of this, even though he denied being one himself.”

“He didn’t seem like an Emissary.” Scott confirmed.

Although Scott was agreeing, there was a sharp bitterness in his tone every time he addressed him.

Theo tried to ignore it. He leaned back in his chair, pulled out his new phone, and began searching as best he could for charms that matched some to the ingredients that he recognized. It was difficult to search that way and he kept finding himself looking longingly at a silver macbook being used by a girl at an adjacent table.

When she got up to use the restroom, she asked the barista to keep an eye on it for her. The moment the girl disappeared a group of four travelers entered the shop, loudly shaking out umbrellas. As they made their way up to the counter to place their order Theo saw the opportunity that was about to cross him. 

If only he could get rid of the only pair of eyes that really mattered.

“Hey, why don’t you go pull the car around?” Theo asked. “It's getting kind of late, let’s check into a hotel. There seem to be a lot in this town.”

“Fine.” Scott said, every bit as curt and unhappy as he’d been throughout the rest of their conversation.

 

*     *     *

 

They couldn’t find cheap lodgings in High Falls, despite the fact that it was off season. The hotels were all moderately sized Adirondack style structures that looked more like homes than businesses, yet probably cost more than either.

Scott didn’t have the bandwidth to care about the price of where they were staying. In the end, he let Theo work his silver-tongued charms on a desk attendant and secure them a lower rate. He went to the car to get their bags so he wouldn't have to hear whatever tale of invented woe Theo was spinning to get what he needed this time.

The image of Jennifer’s brother haunted every step Scott took. That pointed nose. That indignant and disgruntled expression. The painful hole he felt cutting into his chest hadn’t disappeared when they’d left the house, and the more Scott tried to pretend it didn’t exist, the larger and more intense it grew.

He leaned against the car for a moment, listening to the thunder and pouring rain running over the awning that shielded the waiting vehicles.

He’d promised to protect Liam. To take care of him. He’d held him in his arms and told him that he’d be there for him. That he’d always be there for him.

What a lie.

He hadn’t known it was a lie, but it was.

He wonders what Liam had felt when he died. 

Had he been angry? Scared? Had he thought, in vain, that Scott would save him, right until the very end?

Scott would never get to know. 

He would never know how Liam felt, or what his last words were. He would never know if he spent the final moments of his life hating Scott for breaking his promises. 

He would never get to explain that he had  _ tried _ . That he would give  _ anything, _ his own life included, to have stopped what had happened.

Did Liam know that Scott still loved him even though he had failed to protect him? 

Did he know that when his soul left his body, a part of Scott left with him?

Things would never be the same, Scott forces himself to recognize as the wind picked up and sprayed his face with droplets of rain. 

There would be a shadow, a blank space that would follow him for the rest of his life. A constant emptiness where Liam should have stood beside him.

His body shook. He could feel the ache spreading, ready to consume him, when he heard Theo’s voice from the hotel entrance.

“Scott?” he called, slightly cautious. “Everything okay?”

Scott swallowed.

“Yeah.” he said, opening the car door and scooping up their bags. “I’m fine.”

 

*     *     *

 

The room Theo’d acquired for them was small, but quaint. Bedposts made from rustic-looking timbers, brown pillows, soft quilts, and even a very large picture window that looked out onto the stormy mountain side.

Scott sat on his bed, watching the trees sway in the savage wind. Their branches and tall spines bent and twisted so furiously they looked as though they might snap. He found himself wondering why they didn’t just let themselves.

Was there a point to them enduring the volatile shifts around them? What reason did they have to resist what would be their inevitable fate? What good were they even to themselves, simply just being?

His mind drifted to the sounds of animals that he’d become accustomed to hearing. Scurrying and pecking away in the latest hours of the night. Nest in the trees branches, within the hollows of it’s walls. Even amongst its roots.

Those animals relied on the tree, because the tree was stronger than them. They chose to make their homes on its branches and within its walls because of the safety and stability it could provide. But even something as strong as a tree couldn’t protect all of its inhabitants from wind like this.

Nests would be tossed from branches, water would rush through the tree’s bark. Even when the storm was over, life within it would be lost. So what was the point of the tree when it had failed to do the one thing it was made for?

The soft sound of typing roused Scott from his dark questions. He tilted his head to see Theo, leaning against the headboard of the other bed. His legs stretched out in front of him, his brow slightly furrowed as he tapped away on a laptop.

Now there was a creature that  _ always _ survived the storm. The kind of creature that didn’t care if it had to cannibalize the world around it so long as it could continue its existence. So long as it could get what it wanted.

But the more Scott found himself watching Theo, the more he found his disposition towards him altered.

Theo always looked different whenever they stopped for the night. His guarded posture relaxed into something more easy and natural. His unstyled hair, still damp from the shower, looked softer and more delicate.

_ He _ looked softer and more delicate.

Barefoot, tired, vulnerable. It was hard to be angry with him when he looked like this.

Scott’s eyes followed the alluring lines of Theo’s collarbone, the curves of his shoulders and arms, the places where the soft fabric of his shirt clung to his chest and waist. His sleepwear hung loosely on his relaxed body, but Scott could still see the smooth contours of his legs through the dark draping cloth.

_ No _ . 

Scott stopped himself, immediately.

He was not allowed to think that. Not about Theo. Not again. Not  _ ever _ .

Shame crept through him at the places his gaze had just wondered. It was appalling that he could have looked at  _ anyone _ like that after where his mind had just been, but  _ Theo  _ of all people...

His skin began to prickle in angry humiliation. His friends, his family, his pack, were lying buried in rubble, and he’d just found his eyes raking over the body of someone that had once split them apart.

He was about to turn his head away and force his gaze back out the window when his eyes caught the glimmering foil of a peeling One Direction sticker. It was old, and stuck sloppily on the corner of the laptop Theo was using. It forced a connection in Scott’s mind that he’d been too low and distracted to make earlier.

“Theo...” his voice purred on the edge of rage. “ _ Where _ did you get that?”

Theo’s typing stopped. His back stiffened. He didn’t lift his gaze from the computer, but Scott could see a concerned look flicker in his eyes.

His posture shifted uncomfortably, like a dog that had been caught chewing the furniture.

“Well?” Scott pressed.

“I found it.” Theo answered, reluctantly. 

“You  _ found _ it...” Scott repeated Theo’s words back to him. “Where? In some little girl’s backpack? Or maybe in the back seat of some mom’s car?”

Theo closed his eyes, and Scott could hear him stifling a growl in the back of his throat.

“What do you want me to say right now?” he asked, finally meeting Scott’s eyes. “You want me to lie to you? I can do that if you really want me too...”

There was something soft and accusatory in his tone. Like Scott was just  _ forcing  _ him to tell lies. Using him somehow.

“You  _ know _ that isn’t what I want!” Scott’s voice rose, and he jumped off his bed. “I want you to stop taking advantage of people! I want you to stop taking things that aren’t yours!”

“We  _ need _ it!” Theo snapped back. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but neither of us has a job or is sitting on some massive inheritance. That credit card you’ve been swiping is only going to last so long, Scott. I’m just trying to make it last.”

“You can’t take things from others just because  _ you _ need them!”

“Oh yeah? What am I supposed to do then?” Theo closed the laptop and swung his feet over the side of the bed so he could face Scott properly. “No one is going to just  _ give me _ what I need. I have to take it.”

“No.” Scott’s voice became louder. “No that is  _ not _ the way the world works!”

“It  _ is _ the way it works.” Theo insisted, and Scott could hear his blood pressure rising. “People see what they want and they  _ take it _ from you. No one gives a fuck how bad I need things, why should I care about what they need?”

“Because you’re supposed to  _ care  _ about other people!”

“Are you really going to get up my ass about one stolen laptop?” Theo growls. “We’re out here, we have nothing, we’re trying to figure out what happened. We stole that car, do you remember that?”

That hadn’t occurred to Scott. They had stolen the car they were in. But much like the laptop, he hadn’t been able to notice it.

As he thought about it there were all sorts of things in the car that Scott was fuzzy on the origins of. The duffle bags they kept their clothes in, the clothes themselves, the toothbrush Theo’d given him, even the phones Theo’d gotten at Best Buy.

Had Theo stolen all of those as well?

“No you don’t, because you were too blinded by how bad we needed it in the moment.” Theo went on, as if his point had been made. “It’s a fucking computer, Scott. She’ll cry to her parents, maybe have to use one of theirs for a few weeks, and then they’ll get her a new one.”

Theo was right, to a certain extent. They were in dire conditions. They needed to eat and sleep places and buy clothes and still stay off the radar while solving the mystery about the man that had followed them.

Scott hadn’t thought about it. He hadn’t been able to think about it, and he hadn’t wanted to.

But that wasn’t  _ really _ the point.

“It’s not just that you take things.” Scott lowered his voice, but his tone remained every bit as livid. “It’s the  _ way _ you take them.”

“ _ What _ ?” Theo asked, confused. “What the hell does that even  _ mean _ ?”

“It’s how you don’t  _ care _ .” Scott’s not sure he’d ever said a word more venomous than he’d said ‘care’. “You don’t  _ care _ when you hurt people.”

Theo still looked confused.

“You’re so fucked in the head and you don’t even see it.” Scott went on. “You didn’t care about how we intruded on Jennifer’s family. I know we had to do it, but their pain didn’t matter to you at  _ all _ .” 

Theo stared at Scott, like he’d been cut.

“And spinning that crap about your  _ missing sister _ ?” Scott continued. “How the  _ fuck _ could you say something like that without batting an eyelash? Without feeling even a shred of remorse? How could you look that grieving woman in the eye and make her feel sorry for you and your sister that you  _ killed _ ?  _ How _ ?”

Something flickered through Theo’s eyes, and for a moment Scott thought it looked like pain.

“Well...” he said after a long silence. “I’m sorry that I don’t  _ feel  _ what you think I should.” 

His tone was bitter and sarcastic, but there was a wounded edge to his voice.

“I’m sorry that I’m not crying my eyes out while I do what’s necessary for us right now.” Theo went on, and Scott could feel the waves of anger and hurt rippling off him. “I can pretend for you if you want. It’s not hard. I can make it seem like I feel things the way I ‘should’ be feeling them.”

He can see the dashed hopes in Theo’s eyes. The look of a dog that had been trying it’s hardest to learn its master’s commands only to be kicked cruelly for misunderstanding.

Scott felt a sharp pang of regret at his outburst.

Could Theo really help if he was so damaged he couldn’t even  _ see _ that he was cold? If he was trying to  _ act _ right, could Scott really hold it against him?

Theo let out a disgusted, self-hating scoff and stood. He snatched his key off the bedside table and moved for the door.

Scott leapt across the room after him. He caught Theo’s wrist just as he was reaching for the doorknob and pulled him back.

“ _ What _ ?” Theo growled at him, and Scott could see the glassy reflection of frustrated unshed tears in his eyes. “I already told you I’ll do what you want. What more do you want from me?”

“You’re not going out alone again.” Scott found himself saying. “Not with that man out there looking for us. You’re not leaving my sight.”

Theo swallowed. His eyes fluttered down to Scott’s hand on his forearm, and then back up again.

“I don’t want you to pretend to feel things you don’t feel.” Scott whispered after a long moment. “I just want you to  _ try  _ to actually feel them.”

Scott could feel emotions churning in Theo, but they were too muddled to decipher.

“Can you do that?”

Theo nodded, and Scott released his grip.

 

*     *     *

 

Theo turned over in his sleep, his breath rapid and hot against his pillow. His heart thudding heavily beneath the layered blankets. Small beads of sweat formed on the back of his neck and brow.

_ “You’re not going out there.” Scott’s voice purred over him, his breath smouldering against the skin on Theo’s face. _

_ His back was against the hotel door. Scott’s hands were on him. Authoritative. Protective. Warm. _

That's where it had ended. After Scott had said that, Theo nodded and let Scott walk away. But in the blurry realm of sleep Theo's unconscious mind wouldn't let it end there.

_ Scott's slipped under his shirt and pinned him to the cedar door.  _

_ A heat curled in Theo’s core, spread through his limbs. _

_ “Why?” he asked, his hands sliding up Scott’s arms. His fingers caressing the sinewy curves of his tattooed flesh.  
_

_ “You know.” Scott breathed, his lips hot and wet just below Theo’s ear. _

_ Theo nodded, even though he didn’t know. He had no idea. _

_ Scott’s teeth bit lightly down his neck and Theo shuddered, his body curling against Scott’s. _

_ He felt weak and dizzy. His back slipped against the door, but Scott had him firmly in his grip. He was in no danger of falling. _

_ The wind blew furiously against the window over Scott’s shoulder, demanding its way into the darkly lit room with them, but the glass held it at bay.  _

_ Scott’s teeth ground pleasantly down his throat. A small nick there from the alpha’s teeth would easily kill him. But he knew Scott wouldn’t hurt him. _

_ He couldn’t say the same for what lurked on the other side of the door behind him. _

_ There was a winding and clicking sound. The thudding of heavy footsteps. Familiar sounds that made Theo’s body rigid with fear. _

_ “Ignore them.” Scott whispered, his hands now flat against the skin of Theo’s back, shielding him from the door. “They can’t have you anymore.” _

_ Theo did. _

_ He buried his face forward into Scott’s neck as the Doctors moved closer. His fingers dug into Scott’s back and Scott’s fingers hooked into his waistband. He could hardly hear them anymore as he bit into Scott’s neck and felt Scott’s body crushing into him. _

_ “Scott...” _

_ _

Theo woke with a start.

The neck of his shirt was damp, as was the pillow he’d turned his face into. The thick blankets on top of him made his heavy breath painful and hard in his lungs.

But it wasn’t the only painfully hard thing he had to deal with.

“ _ Fuck _ .” Theo breathed in frustration, silently praying that he hadn’t been talking in his sleep as he tilted his head towards the other bed.

Scott lay on the other side of the dark room with his back to him. Heart beating in the slow and steady rhythm of sleep.

Thankful for both Scott’s exhaustion and the cover of night, Theo kicked off his covers and crept to the bathroom. 

It was nearly dawn, the soft pale white glow of morning began to creep into the sky in the distance over the trees.

He’d rinsed off before he went to sleep, but hopefully Scott wouldn’t notice if he showered again.

Theo leaned against the wall, letting the water rush over his face. It was lukewarm, as he hadn't decided if he was going to cool down, or grit his teeth and try to be quiet enough to not wake Scott. 

If he resisted his urges, he might be able to continue pretending for a while longer, that he didn’t want the things that he obviously wanted. That he didn’t ache miserably for something that he didn’t deserve, and had no reason to hope he could ever have.

But it would really only be postponing the inevitable. 

He sighed deeply and turned the knob to let the hot water rain down on him. He closed his eyes, bit his lip, and let himself finish what Scott started the moment he’d laid his hands on him.

_ “You’re not going out alone again. Not with that man out there looking for us. You’re not leaving my sight.” _

He imagined Scott’s grip on his arm again, but tighter. Imagined Scott’s nails digging into his skin, tugging him closer, pushing him against the wall.

He could feel Scott’s hot breath rolling down his face.

_ “I don’t want you to pretend to feel things you don’t feel. I want you to try to actually feel them.” _

Beautiful words. Scott actually believed that he  _ might _ be able to feel things like a regular human being. Fuck, Theo didn’t even believe that anymore...

But that’s where the beauty ended. Theo couldn’t follow that direction out. He couldn’t supply the words he wanted to follow next. Couldn’t imagine what Scott’s lips would feel like against his own. Or the types of touch that might mirror the feeling those words lit inside him. 

But he could imagine the blunt grinding of Scott’s teeth on his neck, his throat, over his shoulder and down his back. He could imagine Scott’s nails digging into his hips, his hand tugging at his hair. He could imagine deep growls and dominating thrusts. He could imagine pulling Scott closer, raking his own nails down his back. The earthy scent of Scott’s sweat, like firewood and cinnamon filling his senses till there was room for nothing else.

He could imagine burning pain and building pleasure. The relief of surrendering to it, to Scott.

He swore quietly under his breath. His hand slipped against the tiled wall as his knees nearly buckled. His ears rang and sweat poured down his neck, washed down his body and away with the running water.

He leaned against the slippery wall, painting, eyes closed, for several long moments before swallowing deeply and training his ears back towards the bedroom.

Scott was still, thankfully, asleep.

He rinsed off, and found a towel to shamefully bury his face in while he waited for his heart to slow down. When he felt the rhythm return to normal, he lifted his face from the soft damp cloth and peered at his own reflection in the dissipating steam.

Cool slate blue eyes stared back at him with an unfamiliar level of scrutiny and self-judgement.

 

*     *     *

 

Stiles traced Scott’s call to a payphone in a rural Washington shopping center. 

Derek could tell that their earlier argument was still weighing heavily on Stiles’ mind as he made every effort to continue to run his mouth, while actively avoiding anything that could possibly relate to what they’d heatedly discussed.

He kept making jokes about a podcast and looking for a phone booth outside of Best Buy. Derek told him several times that he had not listened to said podcast, but that hadn’t deterred Stiles at all. He continued to make his jokes, even though they were only appreciated by himself.

Of course when they found the phone booth there wasn’t even the remotest hint of Scott. 

Which left them waiting in the lot, Stiles’ laptop open and leeching Wifi off a Panera nearby, waiting for Scott to swipe his card someplace else. When hours passed with not so much as a gas purchase, they’d finally decided to get something to eat.

They spent the remainder of the afternoon in Applebee’s, where Derek was treated to watching Stiles use his straw to fish ice cube after ice cube from his soda so he could crunch loudly on them. 

The FBI may have provided Stiles with a gun and a crisp white shirt, but he was still every bit as frustratingly  _ Stiles  _ as Derek remembered.

Even more embarrassing than the crunching, however, was the fact that the waitress  _ clearly _ thought they were on a date together. Stiles was oblivious, but Derek could tell from the moment she seated them. She had a glimmer in her eyes that people sometimes get when spotting a baby or a cute couple.

It made Derek incredibly uncomfortable, not just because he was older than Stiles, but because he hadn’t been on a real date in a restaurant since he was sixteen. The fact that Stiles was entirely unaware of the waitress’s assumption somehow made it worse. But by this point in his life, Derek was almost used to the universe finding cruel and unique ways to punish him.

Wasn’t he a little too old to be on a date with Stiles? Didn’t the waitress find that weird at all?

Derek’s eyes raked over his dinner companion, who was then slurping the remaining amount of soda from the bottom of his cup and waving for a refill. His black tie was hanging low and sloppy on his chest, the top several buttons of his shirt undone, and Derek wondered why he even bothered dressing in professional clothes if he was going to wear them like an ass.

But he couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t really look like a teenager anymore.

Or at least he didn’t when he was sitting upright and not shoveling ice cubes into his mouth.

“Would you  _ stop that _ ?” Derek finally growled at him from over the dessert menu. “I feel like I’m having dinner with an eight-year-old.”

“Stop what?” Stiles asked, with a crunch.

Derek had half a mind to reach right into his mouth and rip the cube out of his mouth, but Stiles was saved as the waitress came over and refilled his glass.

Despite his question, Stiles seemed to actually be aware of what Derek had been requesting he stop doing, as he sipped his soda like a regular human being for a few moments.

Derek was happy for the quiet, but only for a moment, as he noticed Stiles tracing his finger in nervous circles over the tabletop.

There was a darkness in his eyes, a seriousness that had been absent only a few moments earlier.

“So, I was thinking of changing the message on my voicemail.”

Derek frowned.

“Why?”

“You know, in case Scott calls again and I miss it. I could still get him a message.”

It sounded like an awful idea, but Derek let Stiles continue.

“The trouble is what to say...” Stiles went on. “It can’t say anything that would let Monroe or her people learn anything about where we are or what we’re doing, or anything that could potentially put Scott in danger.”

“What’s the point of it at all?”

“To get him to stop running from  _ us _ .” Stiles explained, “To get him to try to contact us for real, instead of what he’s doing.”

“Well, I don’t think there’s going to be anything you can say that will make him want to.” Derek said matter of factly.

“ _ Thank you _ , Derek for your continued optimism.” Stiles threw his hands up in the air in frustration. “I’m  _ so glad _ I asked for your opinion. It was an inspiring, insightful treat, as usual.”

“Honestly, Derek.” he shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t even know why you’re here looking for him if you think he’s so hopeless. It’s like you think I shouldn’t even  _ try  _ to fix this.”

“I’m here because Scott’s vulnerable and needs protection.” Derek clarified. “I’m with you to make sure you don’t get yourself killed. I don’t want to leave a message because I think it’s stupid.”   


“ _ How _ is it stupid?” Stiles whispered furiously at him. “I want to say something that will get him to stop running from us! You’re the one that said I didn’t understand what he’s going through! What am I supposed to do with that information that you so  _ wisely _ bestowed on me? Just accept that I can’t and move on?”

“Yes.” Derek said flatly. “You’re supposed to do  _ exactly _ that.”

“Well, I  _ won’t _ .” 

“There are some things you can’t change, Stiles.” Derek fumed. “Some things are just better off accepting.”

“What is it that I’m supposed to accept here? That Scott’s  _ gone _ ? That we’ll never find him?”

“No we’ll find him. Eventually. What you need to give up on is this ludicrous idea that there’s anything you’ll be able to say that will make this better for him.”

“So what you’re saying,” Stiles eyes were locked on him, his voice shaking in furious whispers. “is that I need to give up on the idea of being able to _ help  _ him?”

“I’m  _ saying _ that guilt like that doesn’t go away.”

“How the  _ fuck  _ would you know?” Stiles practically spat at him. “Have you ever even _ tried _ to talk to someone when  _ you  _ feel guilty? Once?  _ Ever _ ?”

“ _ It’s not the kind of thing someone wants to talk about _ !”

“That doesn’t mean you quit before you even _ try _ !” Stiles slammed his fist down on the table and their cups rattled. “How much has not trying worked for you Derek? Are you  _ happy _ ? Do you like your life?”

“Are you boys ready for the check?” the waitress asked nervously approaching the table again.

“Yeah, we are.” Stiles said. “Unless you want to get something else,  _ honey bear _ ?”

Derek’s cheeks flushed at the acidicly spoken pet name out of nowhere.

Maybe he’d been wrong about what Stiles had or hadn’t picked up on.

“No.” Derek growled, reaching for his wallet.  
  


*     *     *

 

When Scott finally did swipe his card again, it was at another seedy motel more than eight hours away.  Over the course of the ride Stiles mulled over a thousand variations of what type of message he could leave for Scott, and by the time they arrived, the lost alpha wolf was gone again. 

Tired and too pessimistic to be disappointed, they requested the same room Scott had stayed in, offering up the excuse that they heard from their friend that it was ‘really nice’.

Unlike the first room, this one had been fully cleaned before their arrival. Stiles sat down on the dingey floral quilt and fuzzy orange blanketed bed and rubbed his face furiously in frustration. There was little in the room that he could observe on his own, and Derek couldn’t pickup much in terms of chemosignals either.

“He’s upset.” was all he contributed.

Yeah, no shit he was upset.

Stiles raked his fingers down his face and stared around the cheap faux-wood paneled walls. His eyes eventually settled on the phone on the nightstand table between the two beds.

He picked it up and waited to hear a dial tone before slamming it back down in anger.

_ Bastard.  _ Stiles thought viciously about his friend.  _ He could have called. He could have called me from here... _

Nearly all of Scott’s friends were dead. Nearly. Not all.

Why the fuck wasn’t he calling him? Was everything Derek said true?

Did Scott think he wouldn’t understand? Did Scott think he would blame him for what happened?

It’s been a week since the fire in Beacon Hills. Scott had called him twice. He was clearly worried about Stiles and didn’t want Stiles to think he was dead. But he obviously also didn’t want to talk to him.

It was so hard not to be angry. At Scott for running. At Derek for being so damn unhelpful. At himself for not being there to stop it all.

And beneath all that he can’t help but wonder: is it his fault that Scott doesn’t want to talk to him?

Is it just that Scott’s in shock needs space? Was he running to protect Stiles?

Or was it that the last time someone was in danger, Stiles had blamed Scott?

That night, senior year in the hospital, flashed before his eyes. He’d been driven to his breaking point. Theo hadn’t just isolated and manipulated Scott. He’d also isolated and manipulated Stiles, and Stiles had cracked.

In the heat of the moment, the stress, the anguish, he’d lashed out at Scott. Attacked him. Blamed him for not being good enough at protecting people.

They had made up, of course. They’d talked about what went wrong, talked about pack and friendship. Traced Scott’s dorky circles in the ground.

But Stiles had never apologized for that specifically. He’d never said that he knew it wasn’t Scott’s fault that his dad was in danger. Never said that he shouldn’t have lashed out at him, no matter how hurt he was.

He thought that Scott knew that he was sorry. That he didn't mean it. That he couldn’t ever mean something like that.

But after facing dead end after dead end, empty hotel room after empty hotel room, calling his home phone hourly in the sad hopes Scott might have called again, he began to wonder.

Did Scott really know that those things weren’t his fault? Did he think Stiles would blame him for Lydia’s death the same way he’d blamed him for his Dad being in danger?

He should have apologized for that specifically. He shouldn’t have left it unsaid.

He felt tears start to well up behind his dry eyes, and quickly wiped them away.

Derek for some reason had decided to treat him like a child on this trip, and he wasn’t about to give him another reason to do so.

When he pulled his sleeve away from his face and found himself staring blankly at the second bed, a thought struck him.

Why was he sitting on one bed, and looking at another? Why were there  _ two _ beds?

The first motel Stiles had assumed only offered doubles. But this hotel definitely had singles available. The man at the front desk (much to Derek’s flabbergasted embarrassment) had asked them if they needed a room with one or two beds. 

Why would Scott have taken a double if he was all alone?

Unless he wasn’t.

“Derek!” Stiles called, leaping to his feet, as Derek stepped out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel hanging low on his hips. Far too low for Stiles, or anyone else he was sure, to consider decent.

“Gah, damn it, put some clothes on!” Stiles felt his cheeks flush.

Derek glared at him and made no move to get dressed.

“Why did you call me?” he asked.

Stiles would still rather Derek put some pants on, but he was too excited not to dive directly into what he’d discovered. He quickly pointed at both beds and demanded if Derek noticed anything strange about them.

“Um...no?” Derek said, annoyance creeping into his tone.

“Two of them!” Stiles declared. “Why would he get two beds?”

“Because he wasn’t planning on sharing one with the other guy he’s with?” Derek offered as if this was obvious.

“Wait, what?!” Stiles struggled to process why this wasn’t the best news they’d had in days. “What do you mean, ‘other guy’?”

“The guy he’s with.” Derek repeated. “The one that smells like soap and plastic. His scent was all over the first room.”

Simultaneous excitement and fury rose up in Stiles veins.

“HOW WOULD I KNOW THAT?” his voice roared through the dim hotel room. “You didn’t think that was an important thing to tell me? The bodies haven’t all been recovered from the house yet! Someone else could still be alive!”

 

*     *     *

 

Scott slept deeply through the night. He didn’t dream, only felt the vague sense that he was swimming and stumbling through a deep and murky darkness.

When he woke, it was to the light tapping of keys on the bed beside him.

Theo was up, sitting on his bed, eyes focused on the laptop once again. For a moment Scott thought that maybe he’d dreamed the fight from the previous night, but from the tension in Theo’s shoulders when he realized he was awake, Scott knew that he hadn’t.

Theo avoided Scott’s gaze as he took a sip of coffee from a paper cup.

“Where did you get that?” Scott asked groggily.

“I didn’t steal it.” Theo said defensively. “It’s free downstairs in the lobby.”

Scott felt a twisting sensation in his stomach as he noticed a second cup, snug in a cardboard jacket, clearly waiting for him. He hadn’t meant to be accusatory this time, but he could understand why Theo thought he might have been.

He groaned softly as he sat up and stretched his arms. The storm seemed to have broken. A pale grey sky stretched over the wet treetops through their window.

“I think I’ve got a lead for us.” Theo said, closing his laptop and moving to pack his things. “On the stuff we found in that star.”

“Mmmm?” Scott raised an eyebrow at Theo as he reached for his coffee.

It was a dark roast, sweetened with cream and a small amount of sugar. Just how he liked it. He closed his eyes as it’s rich flavors danced along his tongue.

He could feel the care with which it had been stirred. The scent of the hand that had carried it, soothing and smooth - like vanilla and soap, still lingered on the paper edges of the cup. It wasn’t the hand of someone that had been angry or resentful as it performed the task, which somehow made the fact that Theo was avoiding his eyes feel even worse.

“Yeah.” Theo went on, his back to Scott as he rolled up a dirty shirt and stuffed it into his bag. “So back when I was with the Dread Doctors, they borrowed some research from this guy, Dr. Quinten Doherty. I kind of thought that the markings on the truck looked familiar. I couldn’t really place from where, but when I was trying to figure out one of the weird herbs in that star, I remembered that Doherty’s house was full of it. The research we took from him had those same markings.”

Scott scowled.

“So you think he’s behind all this?”

“Doherty?” Theo nearly laughed as he looked over his shoulder at Scott. He made eye contact briefly before returning his attention back to the duffle bag.  “No way.”

Theo continued to behave on edge all morning long. He actively avoided Scott’s eyes as they packed their things and shifted uneasily as they ate a breakfast of muffins and cereal in the hotel lobby. 

But by the time they checked out, and packed their things into the car, the awkwardness had faded, and things began to return to normal.

It was odd to think that normal was now getting in a car with Theo.

They stopped at a gas station in the center of town. While Theo pumped the gas, Scott spied several teens on a wet and grassy soccer field.

That boy was with them.

He felt his heart drop down to the pit of his stomach. The hotel muffin threatened to make its way back up again, along with his coffee.

He stepped out of the car, desperate to get a breath of fresh air.

“Scott?” Theo’s voice, laced with concern, called to him as he leaned against the pump, heaving in dry breaths. “Are you-”

“ _ Fine _ .” Scott brushed him off, and stepped away.

He didn’t worry about Theo leaving him. If Theo was planning on abandoning him somewhere on the road he would have done it a long time ago.

Instead he walked up to the field, drawn to the thing that would inevitably cause him more pain.

He paused when he saw Jennifer Kiely’s mother, also watching the game. She was holding a thermos, her eyes following the movements of her son. Her lips curved into a smile as she watched him make a goal. 

He wanted to turn and get back in the car immediately, but something stayed him.

Guilt.

Ignoring Theo, whom he could feel watching him back at the pump, he made his way up to her.

“Mrs. Kiely?” he said, his voice heavy.

She turned to him, her eyes widening in surprise for only a flicker of a moment.

“Oh...um, I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name earlier...?” she said, as if she was the one that should be embarrassed as he approached.

“Scott.” he said, unable to think up a lie. “I...I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. For the other day. For bothering you and bringing all that up. It was selfish. Th-Jude, he doesn’t always understand things like that. We really shouldn’t have troubled you.”

She was quiet for a moment, as she studied him. Scott could see small flickers of pain in her features, but they quickly smoothed over, replaced by something mature and compassionate that Scott couldn’t understand.

“It’s alright.” she said. “I know that Jennifer isn’t coming back. I’ve known for a long time. I think about her nearly every day, you boys didn’t bring up anything that wasn’t already there. And I understand what it’s like to lose someone, to wonder if you’ll ever see them again, to want to hope, to want to try everything that you can...”

“I’m sorry.” Scott said again, dropping his eyes. “It was wrong. I know that.”

He felt a hand on his arm, and he looked up at her in surprise.

“It’s okay, I promise.” she said gently.

“How could...how could it possibly be okay?” Scott said, his voice breaking. He’s not sure why she is trying to comfort him.  _ She’s _ the one that needs comfort. “How could it  _ ever _ be okay?”

“It will be.” she said, reassuringly. “It won’t ever be the same, but eventually it will get better.”

“But-” Scott started, unable to comprehend how a mother could ever be able to move past something like that.

How could anything ever be right for her again?

“Your friend...” she said, her head turning over to her shoulder to where Theo was leaning on the hood of the car, arms folded and eyes narrowed, undoubtedly sweating bullets that Scott was about to blow their cover or say something stupid. “He wasn’t the one that lost someone, was he?”

Scott’s mouth went dry.

“No.” he admitted.

“But you did?”

Scott dropped his eyes once again.

“Yes.”

“I know it’s hard to hear.” she said softly. “That things will get better. It’s hard to accept that life will move forward, without the ones that we’ve lost.”

Scott couldn’t speak. He merely nodded his head.

“But the truth is, Jennifer can’t ever leave me. I don’t move forward with my life because I want to forget her, I move forward because I want to carry her with me. It would be unfair of me to not to. To Jeniffer, to myself, and...”

Her eyes moved to the field, and Scott followed her gaze to the Liam look alike.

“I know that it’s hard to believe. But no matter how much you love someone, and how much it hurts to know that you won’t ever be able to see or touch them again, there is always something that will make the pain worth enduring. Even if you can’t see it in the moment, it’s there. Nothing is permanent in life. But no matter how hard it gets, no matter how much is taken, there is still more that can be given. We owe it to ourselves and the people that we love to wait it out and try to find it.”

Scott’s eyes stayed on the boy as he listened to her words.

 

*     *     *

 

Theo didn’t say anything when Scott finally made his way back to the Civic and started the engine. He was quiet till they pulled out onto the mountain passes, at which point he began directing Scott towards the highway that would take them to the coast.

Cool damp wind rippled through Scott’s hair as they took the winding path down from the mountain peaks. The colors that had been muted by the storm were sharper, darker greens and clearer blues around them.

Mrs. Kiely’s words turned in his mind over and over again.

The idea that he owed it to his mother and Liam to try to pick up the pieces of his life made sense. The idea that they would move forward with him felt true.

But there was another truth that was impossible to escape. 

The fact that his mother and Liam weren’t just gone. They didn’t evaporate. They weren’t taken from him by some strange and unfortunate event.

They were killed. Because of him.

His bite, his fate intertwined with theirs, was what brought them to ruin. 

What right did he have to any happiness knowing that?

His grip tightened on the wheel.

All he wanted in the world was to call Stiles. To hear the voice of his best friend. To offer him comfort. To talk to him. About anything.

But he couldn’t. Because he didn’t deserve to have Stiles, and more importantly, Stiles didn’t deserve him.

Stiles deserved a chance at a life without Scott and all of the tragedy that would follow him. Scott could deal with the fact that life gave and took away at a whim, but he couldn’t live with himself knowing that he selfishly ruined the life of another.

Stiles was surely suffering with grief, but in the end, he would be better off. Stiles had a shot at a real life. A human father that loved him, a glorious career at the FBI, the chance to make new friends and fall in love again. 

Stiles could start over, but he wouldn’t be able to with Scott around. From the moment Peter’s teeth sank into him, he was a blight on the life of everyone he cared about. He did his best to fight it, but it never mattered how hard he tried, devastation always followed. 

Stiles, much like everyone, would be better off without Scott.

There was a popping and a crackling sound beside him, and Scott’s eyes darted to see Theo taking the cap off a bottle of iced tea. He then reached for the radio and cycled through the static-ridden stations that they could pickup in the remote area.

Well,  _ almost  _ everyone would be better off without him.

There was, at least, one notable exception.

A wave of possessiveness rolled through his veins as he watched Theo play with the stations.

It wasn’t the first time he’d felt the sensation creep through him. Ever since the night in the forest, when he’d rushed to find Theo chained to the back of that truck, things had been different. The feeling would wax and wane, but it was always there.

The sense that Theo was his. That fate had somehow given him the only person on earth that might actually need him.

His eyes moved along the edges of Theo’s arm, watched where his smooth skin disappeared beneath bunched sleeve of his hoodie.

Before he could stop himself, his hand reached out and wrapped around Theo’s forearm firmly.

Theo’s froze in place. He whipped his head around to face Scott, his eyes wide.

“This...” Scott said, his heart pounding in his chest. “Leave this station.”

Theo looked at him, then glanced at the radio.

It was playing a tinny and distant sounding rendition of a song by the Killers.

“Um...okay...” Theo said slowly.

He didn’t move to pull away.

“Okay.” Scott said, not sure why he couldn’t bring himself to let go.

“Okay...” Theo said again, still not moving.

Scott let go, replaced his hand on the steering wheel, and refocused his eyes on the road ahead.

_ No. _ He told himself again.  _ No, you can’t do that... _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thoughts and feedback are always greatly appreciated. It helps me when writing to know what aspects of the story people are interested in, how they feel about the characters, etc. :-)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the lovely and encouraging comments! It's really helped keep me motivated and on track!

“I already told you it wasn’t any of them!” Derek growled as he followed Stiles down to the front desk.

“Yes, but _ you _ can no longer be trusted.” Stiles marched down the rickety case of outdoor stairs. “So now I have to check everything  _ myself _ .”

The stairs were still wet from the previous night’s rain, and Stiles slipped on the second to last one. Derek caught his arm to steady him, but Stiles shook him off vigorously.

“ _ Don’t _ touch me!”

The mere fact that Stiles told him so authoritatively not to do it made Derek want to try again just to spite him. Stiles was not the boss of him, and he would do as he liked.

He fought the urge, however, and followed his furious companion to the desk.

“If he were with any of the pack, then I would have told you.”

“Yuh-huh.” Stiles spat sarcastically and obviously unconvinced.

Derek swallowed a growl as they entered the lobby, if the shabby room that held the front desk could be called that.

If he’d known that Stiles would be this angry, he would have mentioned the fact that Scott had a travel partner sooner. He just wasn’t sure that it was really relevant as it obviously wasn’t a member of the pack, and Stiles was already so pissed at Scott for taking off, it would surely have only set him off farther.

Also, Derek was used to working solo, keeping things close to the vest, and old habits die hard.

A clump of bells clanked roughly against the door as Stiles flung it open.

“Hey!” The man behind the desk shouted. “You gonna replace that door for me when you rip it off its hinges?”

‘Uh, sorry.” Stiles said immediately, and Derek could hear him trying to swallow his anger. “I just had a question...”

“No, you can’t have late check out.” The man grumbled. “I have the maid coming in an hour and you better be out by then or I’ll charge your card for another night.”

Derek nearly rolled his eyes. As if the fifty-two dollars was going to break his bank.

“No, no nothing like that.” Stiles drew his phone out of his pocket. “We can’t get in touch with our friend; his phone must be dead. He checked in with another person, right?”

“Yeah.” The man said. “He did.”

“Was it this guy?” Stiles held a picture of Liam in a lacrosse jersey, frowning as he held up a trophy with Scott’s arm wrapped proudly around his shoulders.

“No.”

“Uh, okay, how about this one...” He held up a picture of Mason.

The man shook his head.

“How about-”

“Are you going to walk me through your entire high school yearbook?” The man asked gruffly. “Because I have better things to do with my time.”

“Well, you could tell me what he looked like.”

“I don’t know, one of you dipshit millennials with brown hair? Kind of annoying looking.”

“Annoying?” Stiles brow creased.

“Yeah, he had that smug-as-shit look on his face. Every time he opened his mouth I wanted to hit him.”

A confused look crossed Stiles’ face. He looked back down at his phone and swiped quickly through a number of photos till he found one of a boy that definitely seemed to fit the description.

“It wasn’t...” Stiles held up the phone to the man again. “ _ This _ guy, was it?”

The man squinted at the phone.

“I think it was,” he said after a moment. “His hair was different though. A bit longer, and not styled up like that.”

Derek had no idea who the smug boy in the photograph was, but from the expression on Stiles face, he could only assume that it was someone that had managed make his way onto Stiles meticulously-maintained shit list.

 

*     *     *

 

“How long has that Ford been behind us?” Theo asked, breaking Scott from his focus on the long stretch of road before them, shimmering orange and gold in the setting sun.

Scott glanced at the rear-view mirror. There was a dark blue SUV, a fairly solid distance behind them. Aside from the fact that Theo had just asked about it, there was nothing particularly remarkable about it.

“Not sure.” Scott admitted, feeling slightly guilty that he hadn’t been more aware. “Why?”

“I don’t know...” Theo frowned, scrutinizing the vehicle more thoroughly. “I just...feel like I’ve seen it behind us a few times today...”

It was a fairly standard-looking vehicle. The kind it wouldn’t be uncommon to see many of in one day, especially in the rustic highways they’d been passing through.

“Did you happen to catch the license plate number on the ones you saw earlier?”

“No, I didn’t really think much of it before.”

“You sure it’s the same one?”

“No.” Theo frowns. “I mean, it probably isn’t. It’s a fairly common car, I guess. Just...maybe let’s keep an eye on it?”

Scott turned his gaze to Theo. There was an uneasiness in his posture as he continued to scrutinize the car, a tension his jaw that made Scott’s blood rush with the same undesired feelings of protectiveness that had plagued him on and off for the past several days.

It was hard to fend the rushes off when they were the only thing that offered any reprieve to the endless dark reverie in which his mind now dwelt. When left to its own devices his mind would succumb to the ghosts that circled him. Let them whisper cruel things in his ear, dig their cool fingernails into his skin, and slowly drain the world of color.

“Want me to pull off at the next exit?” he asked, not looking at his travel companion. “See if they follow?”

“Probably wouldn’t hurt.” Theo agreed. “We could get some coffee to finish off the drive.”

Scott nodded and turned on the directional.

 

*     *     *

 

Theo breathed a sigh of relief as they turned onto the ramp to leave the highway and the Ford passed them, streaming along into the dim light of dusk.

He craned his neck to get a look at the people inside: a man and a woman, probably in their early forties. Nothing really out of the ordinary, they had the look of a husband and a wife that had been on the road for far too long. The husband staring sternly at the road, the woman texting on her phone.

“Yeah, nothing.” He confirmed aloud, sinking back into his seat and stealing a quick glance at Scott.

 

*     *     *

 

“Who is it?” Derek asked, as Stiles stuffed rolled socks and dirty laundry into his duffle bag. “Who’s he with?”

Stiles didn’t answer, just continued to pack his bag.

Derek had seen Stiles angry before. He’d seen him frustrated. He’d seen him sputter and bable and shout. He’d seen him turn cutting and sarcastic. He’d seen him so furious his cheeks flushed and body shook with rage.

But he’d never seen him like this.

The silence that filled the dingy room as Stiles gathered his things was deafening. It was eerie and unnatural, the kind of quiet you heard just before a nuclear detonation.

He repeated his question again, but Stiles ignored him.

Stiles phone buzzed on the bed. Derek could see it lighting up with a notification that Scott’s card had been used again.

Stiles snatched it up immediately.

“Hillville, Washington.” His voice dripped with malice. “Roadhouse.”

He slung his bag over his shoulder, and headed towards the car.

It wasn’t till several hours later, when they were pulling into the gravely parking lot of a run down building that could only be deemed a restaurant in the loosest sense of the word, when Derek allowed himself to ask again.

“Stiles, you have to tell me what’s going on,” he insisted, roughly sliding the gears into park. “This isn’t fair.”

“Oh, you mean like not telling me that Scott was with someone?” Stiles quickly snapped. “ _ That  _ kind of ‘not fair’?”

Derek flushed.

“That was different...I just didn’t think it would help anything.”

“Bullshit.” Stiles accused, straightening his tie in the visor mirror. “You didn’t tell me because you thought I would be pissed off.”

“Well you are, aren’t you?”

“You are such a fuck sometimes.” Stiles didn’t look at him as he slapped the visor closed. “You know that, Derek?”

He unbuckled himself and reached for the door latch, but before his fingers could loop it Derek snatched him by the front of his white button-down and yanked him halfway across the seats till their faces were barely an inch apart.

“ _ Who _ was the guy in the picture?” he growled.

For a moment, Stiles rage seemed to break. His eyes widened, they flickered down to Derek’s hand and then up again to his eyes. He bit his lip, a nervous twitch that his brief time at the FBI hadn’t had the chance to iron out yet.

Derek reminded himself for the thousandth time that it  _ wasn’t _ distracting. The habit was mildly annoying at best. Okay, maybe even a bit  _ frustrating _ , because who bit their lip like that in the middle of a serious conversation?

“Theo Raeken.” Stiles breathes after a moment.

Derek couldn’t stop his brows from arcing at the answer.

_ Theo Raeken _ ? That’s who he had been smelling in every hotel room they’d found?

Derek had heard from Scott, the havoc Theo had wreaked over the pack. How he’d manipulated and tricked them. How he’d pushed Liam, twisted Stiles, betrayed Malia, before finally moving in on Scott for the kill.

Scott had talked about how the pack found their way back together, how the fact that they were able to withstand Theo’s meddling proved the strength of their bonds, but Derek could tell from the heaviness in his voice as he conveyed the story that all was not well.

Scott was sad. His pack was whole again, but it wasn’t as if nothing had happened.

Being abandoned by his pack had hurt him, and as much as Scott seemed to not want to talk about it, the betrayal from a person he thought had wanted to be in his pack had cut him deeply as well.

Scott had avoided using Theo’s name through much of the conversation, and when he’d finally pushed it out of his mouth he’d done so with so much sorrow Derek could practically hear every muscle in the True Alpha’s chest squeezing around his heart.

But that is  _ not  _ how Stiles says his name.

“Now _ let go _ of me.”

Stiles pushed Derek’s hand off of him and stepped out of the car.

Derek watched him enter the run-down building before stowing his keys in his pocket and following suit.

The inside of the building was equally as unimpressive to Derek as the outside had been. A large dark room that still managed to feel empty despite the walls being tacked full of crinkled dollar bills, dented license plates and other garbage. Dim lighting in slightly reddish hues to try to mask the fact that the glasses patrons drank out of weren’t properly washed.

Derek wasn’t particularly concerned for himself, he’d been in a thousand such places in his travels. His stern face and leather jacket were enough to let people know not to approach him, even if his sports car often received raised eyebrows in the parking lot. But Stiles, in his crisp white shirt and new tie, was sure to draw a few looks.

Derek followed him to the bar, stuffed his hands in his pockets and scowled, ready for Stiles to pull out his phone and begin his usual routine of pestering the bartender with questions and photos of Scott. But when Stiles reached into his pocket, Derek was surprised to see his hand retrieve not his phone, but his wallet.

“Whiskey on the rocks, please.” Stiles practically growled, showing the bartender his (Derek could only assume fake) ID. “Double.”  
  


*     *     *

 

“You coming in?” Theo pauses, his hand on the door as he steps out of the Civic.

“Nah,” Scott yawned as he reached for the shift to slide his seat back. “Just gonna rest my eyes for a minute.”

He reclined backward, allowed his aching leg muscles to stretch out and closed his eyes. He heard Theo begin to step out of the car, when he felt his stomach growl.

“Theo...” his eyes fluttered open and he quickly caught Theo’s wrist before he was out of reach.

He’d only meant to get his attention, to ask him to get something for them to eat. He wasn’t expecting Theo to freeze, stiff as a board.

He could hear Theo’s breath hitch in his lungs, see his eyes widen and feel his pulse surge.

He quickly released his grip.

“Uh, grab a snack or something, okay?” he said, uncertain of what he should think as he watched something flicker through Theo’s smooth features.

Theo nodded and Scott could hear him swallow as he turned away, too abruptly to feel natural. He watched Theo with a furrowed brow as he entered the small, brightly lit store. There was a tension in the dim outline of his back as he stalked away.

Weird.

He settled back down into his chair and closed his eyes again.

Theo had been a little off all day.

A sick feeling began to curl in his stomach as he recalled their fight from the previous evening. They hadn’t fought at all today, but the uneasy way Theo behaved every time Scott came close to touching him was becoming disconcerting.

Every time Theo looked at him with that wide-eyed expression, Scott was reminded of the pain he’d seen flicker inside Theo’s glassy eyes when he’d snapped at him over the stupid laptop.

Theo knew that Scott wouldn’t hurt him...didn’t he?

Maybe he didn’t. He’d spent no small part of his childhood (and all of his teenage years) with the Dread Doctors and had most likely become accustomed to being subjected to unprovoked harm. The Doctors weren’t cruel for their own enjoyment, but they didn’t have any regard for their subject's pain either. And while the Doctors were likely stand-in parents for still developing Theo, he was obviously never more than a laboratory rat to them.

The idea that Theo was recoiling from him now out of fear sent panging aches through his chest.

Of course, there could be a different explanation for Theo’s behavior, but even as he slipped into an uneasy sleep, he wouldn’t allow himself to explore it.  
  


*     *     *

 

It started the moment Stiles’ empty whiskey glass hit the bar. The feeling that he was going to do something stupid and regrettable.

Stiles looked too different. He looked too adult, with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows, swirling the dark amber liquid of his second drink around the ice in the chipped glass.

“My friend will have one too.” Stiles said to the bartender, apparently deciding that Derek couldn’t be trusted to pick his own crummy liquor off the dirty shelf behind the bar.

On his third drink, Stiles finally drew his phone out and pulled up a new photo. This one had both Scott and Theo in it.

It must have been taken before Theo’s betrayal, because the pair seemed to be working together in the Beacon Hills library. Derek couldn’t help but notice that Scott seemed to be standing a little close to Theo for someone that had a girlfriend, and there was a spark in his eyes he hadn’t seen since...probably since before Allison died.

He didn’t ask where Stiles had obtained that photo because from the angle at which it’d been taken and the corners of bookshelves visible at the edges of the frame, it seemed fairly obvious: Stiles had been spying.

“Have you seen either of these assholes?” Stiles asked the bartender. “And did they happen to mention where they were going?”

Derek didn’t ask why Scott was suddenly ‘an asshole’ but the bartender confirmed that they had been there yesterday, and, of course, they hadn’t mentioned where they were headed.

Scott and Theo had stopped for dinner only and kept to themselves, their faces in piles of books and papers.

He couldn’t understand why, but something about this new information seemed to set Stiles off further. Rage smouldered in his eyes as he ordered his fourth drink.

At that point Derek probably should have cut him off, but, instead, he kept his mouth shut while Stiles ordered another. And another.

By the time he finally did put an end to the binge drinking, Stiles was practically slipping off his seat, blathering on and on about Theo Raeken - about whom he had many colorful anecdotes, as well as a number of very graphic things that he would like to do to him once they caught up.

“And if he tries to spin one lie at me-” Stiles practically growled, slurring his words into one another. “One!  _ Single!  _ Lie! I’m gonna carve out his tongue with a box cutter and skullfuck his bleeding mouth ‘til-”

“Yes, we’re ready to cash out!” Derek interrupted him, waving his credit card at the cashier.

Stiles slid off his stool and put his hand on Derek’s chest to steady himself.

“Don’t tell me what I’m ready for,” he said, locking eyes with him.

He then dragged his fingers drunkenly down Derek’s core and Derek had to grab him by the shoulder to keep him from falling forward.

He tried to pretend that the touch of Stiles fingers sliding over him didn’t set off a stirring beneath his skin. Or that his blood didn’t rush at the sight of Stiles licking his lips again.

They were definitely getting looks at that point, and rather than wait for the bartender to add up their tab and run his card, Derek elected to drop a small wad of twenty dollar bills down onto the counter.

“Keep the change,” he muttered, and hooked his arm around Stiles waist.

He shouldn’t have been surprised when he felt Stiles’s body go stiff with resistance, but somehow it managed to catch him off guard.

“No!” Stiles shouted at him, fiercely clutching the bar. “I’ll choose when we leave, and  _ I’m _ paying for this!”

In the momentary rush of surprised embarrassment, he lost his grip and Stiles broke free.

“You hear that?” He shouted even louder at the bartender, and waved his arms exaggeratedly. “ _ I  _ am buying  _ this man’s _ drink, and we leave when  _ I SAY WE DO _ !”

“Isn’t that  _ right _ , Big Guy?” he turned back to Derek, fuming.

There was a small pause as Derek took in the full view of Stiles, cheeks flushed in belligerent fury, stubbornly, holding himself up. He felt every eye in the bar on them, and his own cheeks began to burn.

Without saying another word, he scooped him up by the waist and threw him over his shoulder.

“Put me down, damn it!” Stiles howled, slamming his fist down into Derek’s back. “Stop treating me like I’m a fucking child!”

He continued to struggle as Derek pushed him into the Camaro, and forced a bottle of water into his hands.

“Drink this.” he ordered gruffly, and started up the engine.

Stiles threw it to the floor and folded his arms.

“Fine.” Derek growled as he pulled onto the road. “Suit yourself.”

He took his time finding a motel, allowing Stiles  to cool off in the cold night air.

“You’re an asshole.” Stiles eventually said, slumping down into his seat.

“ _ I’m _ an asshole?” Derek repeated incredulously. “Really?”

“Yes.” Stiles spat as he pulled his tie off and unbuttoned the top of his shirt. “A bossy asshole...”

“Whatever.” Derek said, trying to keep his focus on the road.

“You’re just gonna take that, aren’t you?”

“I’m not arguing with you. You’re obviously drunk off your ass.”

“No,  _ you’re _ drunk off an ass.”

Derek rolled his eyes.

It was quiet for a few moments, save for Stiles heavy breathing, but soon, he was making choked sounds, and when Derek glanced at him, there were angry hot tears rolling down his harrowed face.

“You know what really sucks?” he asked, in a sloppy wheeze.

“What?” Derek couldn’t help but ask, his heart twisting in his chest a little.

He was not cut out to take care of drunk people with feelings. Or people with feelings...or people. At all.

“I bet, Scott is  _ fucking _ him right now.” Stiles muttered bitterly. “Just like he’s  _ fucking _ our friendship.”

Derek needed a moment to process that one.

“He’s what?”

“Fucking Theo. You know, like in the ass? Like when a man wants to pound another man and then they do the dirty nasty?  _ Like that _ .”

An embarrassed burning sensation rolled up Derek’s neck and he felt his cheeks flush at the crude explanation that he really hadn’t asked for.

“That’s not what I mean.” he said quickly. “I meant, I don’t know why you’re assuming that or how that is ‘fucking your friendship’.”

“Are you even kidding me?” Stiles bolted upright. “First off, Scott has  _ always _ wanted to fuck Theo. From the second Theo showed his ass back up in Beacon Hills, Scott has wanted to hit it so hard it was gross. Only thing that held him back was the fact that he had a girlfriend, and-”

“He  _ said _ that?” Derek interjected.

“He didn’t have to say it!” Stiles waved his arms wildly. “I know when my best friend wants to hit something, Derek! And Scott ate up his needy omega wolf routine like a dog eats shit.”

“You’re being disgusting.” Derek growled, angry at the way Stiles was talking about a person that was probably going mad with grief.

So what if Scott had a little crush on an old friend that he thought needed his help? Was that so wrong? How could he possibly have known that Theo had bad intentions?

“Scott fucking Theo after everything that bastard did is disgusting!” Stiles fired back. “And it’s taking a giant heaping shit on our friendship!”

“How?” Derek demanded, his voice raising to meet the volume of Stiles. “How is it doing that exactly? I can understand being worried about him, Theo  _ killed _ him for fuck sake, but this?”

“I  _ am _ worried about him, jackass!” Stiles practically sputtered. “I’ve got a fucking ulcer growing in my stomach because he selfishly decided to take the fuck off instead of facing his problems, and now I find out that he’s been with Theo of all the fucking people in the world! Having dinner together...researching  _ something _ ....as if Theo would be half as much help as I would...”

“ _ He’s _ the one being selfish?” Derek could hardly believe his ears. “He had his mother and his entire pack killed before his eyes and you’re here whining about your fucking friendship and his responsibility to  _ you _ !”

“I lost people, too!”

“Did you lose you  _ Dad _ , Stiles?” Derek demanded. “Did you lose a  _ child _ ?”

“If I had I wouldn’t run from my best friend! Or take off with the very person that nearly tore us apart! How the fuck am I supposed to take that?”

“You’re supposed to take it like he’s obviously out of his mind!” Derek snapped back. “Like he’s probably so confused right now, Theo’s the only thing he thinks he deserves!”

“Oh, and you would know this how?”

“I know what it’s like to feel that fucking guilty!” The words seemed to explode from Derek’s chest as he spoke them. “Okay? I  _ know _ what it feels like to have been so fucking stupid you get your whole pack, your whole family, your whole life destroyed. I know what it’s like to lose almost everyone you love and to know that it’s entirely your fault!”

“He didn’t lose everyone! He still has me!”

“I still had my sister!” Derek spat back. “But I knew I didn’t deserve her. That all the pain she felt, she felt  _ because _ of me!”

“Yeah but you didn’t run away from her, now did you?”

“Yes, I did!” Derek could hardly believe he was talking about this, something he’d never told anyone - and with Stiles no less, but in his anger he couldn’t stop the words from flying out of his mouth. “I ran, and she had to track me down! When she found me, I lied to her. I never told her the truth. She died not knowing that it was me the whole time. _ I  _ was the one that did that to her.”

The car was quiet.

Derek’s vision blurred, and then he swallowed. Forcing down the thoughts that followed. He couldn’t go down that road. It didn’t lead anywhere he wanted to be.

Minutes passed with nothing but cold wind and unwanted feelings rippling between them. Eventually Derek spied a crackling blue vacancy sign from a motel off the side of the highway, and silently took them towards it.

Stiles said nothing, only muttered a few things under his breath, none of which Derek could comprehend.

When he went to help Stiles out of the car, he was almost too distraught to notice the way Stiles fingers felt against his chest, tugging on his jacket to steady himself.

Almost, but not quite.

The slender fingertips sent shivers through him, that he struggled to hide.

Stiles thankfully didn’t fight him as they ascended the stairs to their room.

“Derek...” Stiles panted, leaning against the wall as Derek fished the key to the room out of his pocket. “I know you think I’m an asshole...”

“I think you’re drunk, Stiles.”

“And you think I’m acting like a child...”

“I think you’re looking at this immaturely, yes.” Derek conceded as he fit the key into the lock.

Stiles waved his hand dismissively.

“But you don’t  _ really _ think of me as a child, now do you?”

Derek paused. There was something in Stiles’ tone that he didn’t like. A smug knowingness, the kind of tone a cartoon police officer might take right before declaring “gotcha!” and slapping a pair of handcuffs onto a criminal.

Stiles fingers darted forward and gripped the front of his shirt, tugging him closer till his hot alcohol-scented breath rolled over his face.

“ _ Do _ you?”

There were a thousand and one reasons Derek shouldn’t have kissed Stiles.

Stiles was younger and drunk. They were both upset. He wasn’t really sure why Stiles was taking the conversation in this direction or what his intentions were. And then there was the fact that he’d promised Sheriff Stilinski that he’d look after his son and keep him safe...

But none of it was enough to stop him.

He leaned down, fully intending to crush his lips firmly against Stiles, but somehow, the intoxicated human moved faster. He closed the distance between them and captured Derek’s lip between his teeth. Every nerve ending in Derek’s body snapped to attention as Stiles pulled closer with a hungry growl and they tumbled hastily onto the motel room and slammed the door behind them.

White buttons snapped from Stiles shirt and rattled along the floor as Derek tore the fabric open to slide his palm over his smooth skin. The weak springs in the mattress whined in protest as their bodies crashed down onto it. Derek’s hands found their way over his lanky body faster than they had any right too. Stiles’ mouth was hot against his own, his fingers working Derek’s belt open with fumbling impatience.

With the first few tantalizing strokes of Stiles’s thin fingers around him, Derek felt his reservations begin to crumble. He was tugging Stiles pants down, resolving himself to just feel guilty about his actions in the morning, when an impatient growl from Stiles lips gave him pause.

There was something he didn’t like in Stiles’s touch. Leaving his pants yanked halfway down his hips, Derek seized Stiles’s wrist, putting the pleasant motions to an end mid stroke.

“What hell?” Stiles demanded instantly.

“Why are we doing this?” Derek demanded back.

“What?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Are you serious, right now?”

It was exactly what Derek didn’t want to hear. In Stiles’s avoidant answer was everything he feared.

Stiles wasn’t doing this because he liked him. He didn’t want to feel close to Derek, the way Derek wanted to feel close to him. He didn’t find Derek charming or funny or resourceful. He didn’t have a begrudging affection for Derek’s tenacity. All he wanted was a quick fuck and a way to not think about Scott for a few hours.

Heart sinking in his chest, Derek drew back.

He was being used.

Again.

“What are you doing?”

  
Stiles quickly reached for him, but Derek moved faster.

“We’re done here.” He said flatly. “I’m not being your distraction.”  
  


*     *     *

“Are you _ fucking _ kidding me?” Stiles practically sputtered with confused rage, sitting up on the bed and glaring at Derek as he pulled away. He went to grab Derek’s arm but the werewolf’s reflexes were fast and his hand was left groping through thick and heated air.

“Oh come on!” he demanded as Derek drew farther back. “Don’t you stand there with your hard dick and act like  _ you  _ don’t want this!”

Derek made a disgusted sound and turned away from him, Stiles could hear him re-fastening his belt.

In a different, more sober, state of mind Stiles might have been able to find the words for the questions he wanted to ask:  _ What’s wrong? What did I do? I thought you were into this? It’s not just a distraction, I’ve thought about this for a long time...I know you have too...  _ But with alcohol flooding his veins, adrenaline coursing through his blood, and a boiling rage erupting in his heart, he found none of them.

“It would just  _ kill you _ to finish something you started, wouldn’t it?” he spat venomously.

Derek’s body went rigid, but he didn’t turn around to face him. Instead he moved towards the bathroom door to take, what Stiles could only assume, would be a very cold shower.

“Yeah, that’s right!” Stiles shouted at him. “Go on, ignore me! Quit and walk away, it’s always been what you’re best at!”

He watched Derek’s shoulders twitch in anguish before he disappeared into the bathroom.

It wasn’t till he heard the lock click sullenly that he felt the crushing guilt of the words he’d just let slip out of him. He sank back down onto the bed. His body still shook with anger, but now there was a splitting feeling in his chest as well. A cold sickness pooling in his stomach.

What he said was cruel, and he knew it. It was cruel because it was true. Derek gave up on anything that could possibly bring him a shred of happiness. He would quit and accept defeat in a way that Stiles would never been able to. Having a pack had been the most important thing in the world to Derek, but he had given up on Erica, Isaac, Boyd, and himself long before he’d lost his Alpha powers.

It was cruel because Stiles knew that the reason Derek gave up on anything that could bring him joy or relief was because deep down, he thought he didn’t deserve it.

Stiles knew that, and still he'd said it.

He covered his face with his hand, ashamed to weep openly in the room, even if he was alone. Salty tears spilled down the already chafed and raw skin of his cheeks.

Why did he have to say all that? Why did he always have to hurt the people he loved? Was it just the twisted dark underside of being observant - that he always knew how to hit people where it would hurt the most? Or was it that when he was upset, he didn’t have the control to hold back from using it?

_ Where were you? You trusted him? Believed him? Right? Huh? So where were you? _

Fuck. That’s what he’d said to Scott when Scott had failed to protect someone he cared about.

_ WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU? _

The memory of his own panicked and vengeful voice, looking for anywhere to turn to blame for his dad getting hurt, stung in his ears as the tears continued to gush down his face. The image of Scott curled up on the hospital floor beneath him burned in his mind’s eye.

Fuck.

He could hear the sound of the pipes rattling behind the thin walls as Derek turned the shower on, and he wiped his eyes furiously.

Derek didn’t deserve dealing with him when he was like this, he resolved himself. And Derek couldn’t understand why he was angry, couldn’t understand what Theo did to him.

Because this wasn't just Stiles fault - it was Theo’s.

His friendship with Scott would have never devolved to that point if Theo hadn’t been a snake  _ hissing  _ in their ears.

How could Scott be with him now? How?

His phone buzzed and he glanced at it.

Through the blur of tears and haze of drunkenness he could make out the name of what seemed to be a fancy rustic hotel in some Washington town - the latest place Scott had used his credit card.

It was then that he made up his mind about what he needed to do next. He couldn’t bare to look at Derek in the morning. Not after this embarrassing disaster. And it wasn’t like Derek provided much help anyway.

Glad for the sound cover of the rushing water and rattling pipes, Stiles crept across the room to where Derek’s leather jacket lay on the floor. He carefully retrieved the keys and stuffed them in his pocket. He then went to the motel door, opened the knob and slipped a thin plastic card between the bolt and the latch.

When Derek came back into the room, Stiles pretended to be asleep and then waited. Once most of the alcohol had left his system and he heard Derek’s breath become quiet and steady he slipped out, soundlessly opened the tricked door, and disappeared into the night.

 

*     *     *

 

Theo sighed and raked his fingers through his hair as he stared at the soda cooler.

He’d really made an ass of himself. Standing there like an idiot, heart racing, breath caught in his lungs with Scott’s hand on his wrist.

Just what the hell had he been thinking? That Scott was going to tug him across the seats and kiss him?

The thought made him want to bury his face in his hands and drag his claws down his cheeks.

It wasn’t the first time today that it had happened, or even the second, but it had certainly been the most obvious. Scott was slow and out of it, he didn’t mean for his hands to linger on Theo every time they touched (whether it was to get his attention, or to take change from his palm). And he certainly hadn’t seen what the unintentional prolonged contact did to Theo the three or four times it had happened throughout the day.

But he’d noticed this time.  A blind dingbat with brain disease would have noticed, much less an alpha werewolf with heightened senses - no matter how distracted and sad that werewolf was.

_ Whatever. _ Theo tried to push the humiliating experience aside as he pulled a few bottles of water from the cooler and made his way to the shelves lined with bagged snacks.  _ Scott’ll forget about it soon enough, I just need to stop...doing whatever the hell I’m doing... _

He’d spent the better half of the day pointedly not thinking about his heated dreams, what he’d done in the shower that morning, or why he’d done it. Not wanting Scott to pick up on his confused and struggling chemosignals had been a convenient excuse to not examine it farther. But even with a few minutes of Scott not observing him, Theo didn’t want to think about it.

He grabbed a bag of trail mix with peanuts and off-brand  _ M&Ms  _ from the shelf  _ ( _ Scott seemed to like those - Theo had noticed he seemed to go for them by default whenever they’d bought things together) and stuffed it under his arm. He moved past the lines of toothbrushes and hygiene products, towards the pleasant scent of coffee brewing in glass pots near the back of the store. His eyes caught sight of a small row of brightly-colored cardboard cartons.

He paused for a moment and eyed them.

He’d purchased condoms twice before in his life. Both times it had been because he needed to get something from someone, and both times he’d used them soon afterwards. In neither instance had he bought them with the intention of satisfying a physical, much less emotional, craving of his own. The end goal was something material. Some information that needed to be gathered, trust that needed to be consummated before broken.

He had no such cause now, yet he still found his fingers slipping over a small purple carton, his eyes scanning the slightly high price printed on the shelf above it. He glanced at the position of the cameras and the attendant behind the counter. The attendant, who was also most likely the owner, didn’t seem to be paying much attention to him and if he turned just right he could naturally block the camera view just enough to pocket the item unnoticed.

But why?

He not only was missing a good reason for wanting  _ to _ use them, a situation where he would be  _ able _ to use them in the way that he had in mind seemed extremely unlikely to occur in the near future. Or ever.

Scott was not going to sleep with him. Scott slept with people like Kira and Allison Argent - good people that actually had a deep emotional range and the capacity to feel for others. Not people that had once tried to kill him or that were in possession of an ‘ _ underdeveloped sense of empathy’ _ or a ‘ _ compromised ability to develop meaningful relationships with others’ _ .

Theo flinched internally and slipped his hand back into his pocket, leaving the box on the shelf where it belonged as he recalled the phrases. He’d seen them written about himself in the many psychological evaluations his parents had left unguarded in their desk drawers. Damning evidence of the fact that he had been missing the basic building blocks of what it meant to be a real human being, that he’d been incomplete and unsatisfactory, even before he’d become a chimera.

_ I remember you from fourth grade, Theo _ . Scott’s words from over a week ago replay in his mind as he selects a pair of paper cups from the stacks beside the coffee maker.  _ Probably better than you remember yourself. You might not have been perfect, but you weren’t a monster. _

Scott had really meant that when he’d said it, and recalling it sent an unfamiliar aching feeling creeping through his chest.

_ I don’t want you to pretend to feel things you don’t feel. I want you to try to actually feel them. _

Words that had followed him in his sleep and subsequently into the shower.

As he poured hot coffee into paper cups he briefly considered turning back around for the condoms.

Maybe he could seduce Scott. He was well aware that Scott had been attracted to him in the past. Yes, it had been back when he’d thought Theo was something that he wasn’t, but some of that attraction had to be carnal. Scott might not refuse a small bit of relief from his perpetual misery, if it was offered in just the right way.

The idea had merit, especially given Scott’s compromised judgement as of late. If he played his cards right he might be able to lure him in again on physical appeal alone.

Yet, as he stirred milk and a small amount of sugar into Scott’s cup, he found himself strangely opposed to that course of action. And he couldn’t understand why.

As he racked his brain for an answer he recalled the feeling of Scott drawing pain from his arm as they escaped that man in the woods. The sensation that had fluttered inside him when Scott drew him protectively closer in the bar only a few nights ago. The rush of hope that had consumed him when Scott had grabbed his arm in the car that morning and had stared into his eyes for a long moment before asking him not to change the radio station.

He thought about how broken Scott had looked collapsed in the telephone booth. Of how he’d broken down on the side of the road after nearly hitting a deer. Of the emotion in his voice when he’d talked about how deep Theo’s betrayal had cut him. And of how Scott would put all of that aside on the drop of a dime the second Theo needed his help.

He was still absorbed in the confused thoughts as he handed over a few bills for his items and turned to to leave.

When he lifted his eyes and peered out the glass door, it was just in time to see the same dark blue Ford SUV from earlier tear into the parking lot with a nearly identical vehicle beside it. His eyes widened, an icy chill rolled up his spine, as they halted on either side of the Civic where Scott lay asleep in the front seat.

Coffee fell from his hands and rushed across the floor as he dashed for the door.

“ _ SCOTT _ !” he shouted, just as the air was filled with the roaring sound of machine guns shedding shells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alight, so one chapter left (I think!) to this arc and then onto the final arc. I've unfortunately caught up with myself (I had a bunch of pre-written material for this one when I began publishing) but now I'm no longer ahead. This one took an age to write because sterek is actually a new ship to me.
> 
> I'll still do my best to make my weekly update, but I'll have to work really hard to make it happen so *crosses fingers*
> 
> In any case, I'd love to hear any thoughts/feedback. Your comments have been very encouraging and helpful!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies with how long this chapter took! I've had a lot of real life commitments over the summer, but I'm excited to share this chapter!

_Thick dark clouds loomed and churned above him. Heavy drops of rain poured relentlessly down on his exposed head. The loud whipping roar of the wind carried the water sideways and pricked his skin like needles. Water rushed over his body, soaking him to the bone._

_There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide._

_A loud echoing crack rumbled below him, the ground shook, and he was thrown down onto his knees. Earth crumbled beneath his palms. He scrambled backwards from the deep crevasse opening up, but his limbs moved slowly through the thick stormy air._

_A terrified cry broke free from his lips as the darkness grew before him. As he stared at it, a long slender arm reached forward. It’s pale gentle palm slipped smoothly over his skin, and suddenly he was no longer afraid of it._

_He knew that touch. It was her. But her fingers were not careful and dexterous as they’d been in life. They were graceless and heavy-seeming, as if they took an enormous effort to lift._

_He peered over the edge and her warm features came slowly into focus. Long dark tresses framed her familiar face._

_The first person he’d loved and had to say goodbye to._

_Immediately Scott wanted to go with her. He could hear her whispering, though he couldn’t comprehend her words. More arms began to spring forward, more voices joined hers. All of them were familiar. All of them he loved. Some he’d never had the chance to say goodbye to._

_He could be with them now if he wanted._

_There was another loud rolling crack and Scott felt the ground below him move. He knew if he stayed still it would collapse beneath him and he would tumble down into the dark. He didn’t know where it went but he would be with them. He would no longer be in the rain._

_He didn’t even have to move. All he had to do was stay still. Stay right where he was. Stop fighting._

_Off in the distance there was another sound. One difficult to hear over the sharp whistling of the wind and the gravely rolling clap of rock breaking apart. It was also calling to him, but it was telling him to move._

_But why should he? For the promise of some far off brighter day that he didn’t know would ever come?_

_The whispering below grew louder, and he strained his ears to understand what they were saying to him._

_“SCOTT!” the distant voice shouted, and this time Scott recognized it._

_It wasn’t just the promise of a distant rainless day, it was the sound of someone else in the rain with him. Someone that needed him. And it was desperate._

_With a final thunderous roar the ground below him gave way. His time was up, and he had to make a choice._

Scott’s eyes flew open to the sound of Theo’s voice, and rolled his body away from the dream and down across the front seats of the Civic. Sheets of shattered glass rained down on him as bullets soared above his head.

*     *     *

Nerve-splitting sounds of destruction exploded from the lot.

Theo burst through the door and tore across the parking lot to the SUV between himself and the Civic.

He punched his hand through the window, paying no heed to the thick shards of glass that stabbed his skin. He grabbed the passenger with both hands - the woman he’d seen looking at her phone earlier - and wrenched her by the hair out of the vehicle. Up close Theo could see scars and cigarette burns on her muscular arms, a dull coldness in her wide surprised eyes.

She had the look of someone that’d had a hard life. Theo couldn’t have cared less.

The driver let out a shout as his companion was wrenched out the broken window. The gunner in the backseat ceased his fire at the Civic, but neither could keep up with Theo. He smashed the woman down onto the ground. He heard her spine crack as it hit the hard slate gravel.

Without hesitation, he kicked his foot forward and watched her head snap back. The life left her eyes and she went limp. The gunner switched sides, taking aim at him. Theo ripped the side door open.

*     *     *

The bullets stopped abruptly. Scott heard a rush of shouting and swearing, and among them, an angry roar.

“THEO?” Scott shouted, still confused about what was happening around him.

Men were piling out of one of vehicles beside Scott. He wasn’t sure what was going on in the second vehicle - where Theo’s roar had come from. He scrambled across the front seats, tumbled out of the passenger’s door onto the ground, and tried to get his bearings.

*     *     *

The gunner wasn’t prepared for Theo to rush him. His eyes widened as, instead of drawing back, Theo dived for the weapon. He frantically squeezed the trigger just as Theo knocked the hilt. Bullets fired in a useless stream, shattering the glass doors of the store behind them.

Grabbing the machine gun tightly, Theo pushed the man backwards and heard Scott call his name.

An icy rush of relief flooded Theo’s veins as he realized Scott hadn’t been completely gunned down.

The driver slammed the SUV into reverse and Theo, refusing to disengage from the grapple, was knocked off his feet. Hard sharp rocks cut into him as his body was dragged across the ground with the spinning vehicle.

The gas station had been built on a man-made shelf of earth jutting out from the road. The SUV stopped it’s arc just short of the rickety guardrail that separated the lot from a steep hill that fell into the deep wilderness all around them.

Theo could see Scott now. He was on all fours, looking frantically around him, but that’s all Theo had a chance to glean as the man suddenly let go of the machine gun and reached for a smaller firearm at his hip.

He rolled to the side, but not fast enough. He let out a sharp cry as the bullet caught him in the arm.

Scrambling to his feet, he made a dash back towards Scott.

He realized his mistake when he heard the roar of the engine behind him, but it was already too late. 

*     *     *

Scott lifted his head just in time to see the SUV lunge forward and plough into Theo. He could hear the bones in Theo’s body break as he bounced off the front end of the vehicle and rolled across the lot.

His body came to a skidding halt. Motionless in a cloud of gravel and dust.

Scott felt his fangs slide down, his nails grow into claws.

Heavy brown boots hit the ground as a tall bearded man stepped out of the SUV. There was something familiar about him and his _Carhartt_ jacket, but Scott couldn’t place him. A shotgun in his hands, he stepped towards Theo.

Scott lunged to intercept him. A second car door opened.

Out of the corner of his eyes Scott saw the flash of metal, caught the glimpse of dark hair and a pointed nose.

He faltered. As he turned to face the cold blue eyes of Jennifer Kiely’s brother, he felt a stabbing pain in his gut.

He was frozen in place as the jagged hunting knife ripped out of him and plunged it in a second time.

He fell to his knees, his mind reeling.

Now he knew where he’d seen the bearded man before. He’d been the attendant at the gas station in High Falls.

“Careful, Michael!” a third man called. “That one’s the Alpha!”

Scott clutched his core. Hot blood soaked his palm, but his eyes didn’t leave the face that reminded him so much of Liam it sent pain twisting in his chest to rival the wound.

He could see fear in the boy’s eyes. Fear, anger, and a brutal determination.

He was _so much_ like Liam.

“Do you know what this is for?” the boy asked, his voice shaking almost as hard as the fingers still clutching the bloody knife that was now being brandished at Scott’s face. “Do you?”

Scott’s mind went blank. He glanced down at the blade and then back up at the boy.

“Michael, _get back_!”

“This is for Jen.” The boy snarled, stepping back and drawing a long shotgun from the car. “You fucking _murderer_!”

Scott couldn’t move as he heard the click of the weapon about to end his life.

_Murderer._

He had no idea why the boy was saying that, but the words still felt true. He hadn’t killed Liam, but he might as well have. He’d sealed Liam’s fate the moment he sank his teeth into him. From then on Liam had been a target, and Scott had failed to protect him.

Just like he’d failed his mother. Just like he’d failed all of them.

He was a murderer. And now the hands of fate had risen up Liam’s doppelganger from the Otherworld and unleashed him to exact their vengeance.

He tried to move but his muscles were locked in place. The same fingers of despair that covered his eyes and blinded him from the details of what was happening around him were reaching for him once again. Their clammy death grip holding him in place as he stared up the long barrel of the unsteady gun.

The boy bit his lip, steeling himself.

Scott closed his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to move in time. His arms and his legs felt too heavy, his body too slow.

As the boy’s finger trembled on the trigger, Scott heard a sputtering guttural and helpless sound behind him. Like a small animal caught in the maw of a predator, too weak to scream.

“Don’t even try it..” Scott’s eyes darted from the boy in front of him back to the bearded man. He had his heavy boot on Theo’s broken ribcage. Theo was squirming underneath the pressure, his fingers clawing futilely at the sole of the shoe that was crushing him. The man cocked his gun and took aim at Theo’s head.

“Alpha’s too busy for you right now...”

_Bang._

Scott leapt towards Theo as the Liam look-alike finally pulled the trigger. A massive hole blasted in the ground at his heels. Rock and dark dirt flew into the air as the boy reloaded.

Scott slammed into the bearded man with all his strength, knocking him to the ground.

There was a second bang as another blast from the shotgun burst beside him. This time some of the shrapnel caught Scott in the leg, but he wasn’t the only one it hit.

“ _DAMMIT, MICHAEL_!” the bearded man howled in pain. “ _You goddamn fucking idiot!_ ”

Scott wasted no time. He slid his arm under Theo’s waist and yanked him towards the car that had hit him. It was still running, door open and key in the ignition.

“I’m sorry!” Scott could hear the scared boy’s voice crying out frantically behind him. It was rattled and immature, as if he’d fouled a teammate in a lacrosse game. “I-I wasn’t...I didn’t-”

The sound of it tugged at Scott’s chest as he threw Theo into the SUV and climbed into the driver's seat. He allowed himself to take one more glance at the boy before he slammed the door shut and flung it into reverse.

He watched the boy run over to the wounded man as the car screeched backwards onto the road. His face looked pale and ghostlike in the flash of the bright headlights.

He felt his muscles seize up again, but a flicker of something dark in the rear view mirror, a disgruntled cry from Theo broke him free. A man that had been in the back of the vehicle lurched forward at them. Scott’s hands jerked on the wheel and the car swerved. Theo and the unbuckled man slammed into the dashboard in a messy tangled heap.

The remaining men were now piling into their cars, undoubtedly preparing to pursue them, and Scott could hear the distant sound of sirens.

Unsure of what to do and afraid of being frozen in place again by another sight at the boy, Scott slammed his foot down on the gas.

The car began to pick up speed as Theo and the man grappled beside him. The passenger’s door clicked open in the scuffle - Scott wasn’t sure by whom - and the car was filled with rushing air.

Scott swore and snatched at Theo’s back, trying to get a hold. After a few tries, his fingers curled around the hem of Theo’s jacket.

With a pained but vicious growl Theo dislodged the man on top of him, and kicked him out the door. The man fell into the dust on the road, and Theo, flinching and trembling, exerted the last of his strength to pull the car door shut behind him.

Scott yanked him closer to his side so could keep a better grip on both him and the wheel as the sirens grew louder behind them.

There were no headlights on the dark road, and there wasn’t a single star in the sky.

The shrieks of the sirens behind them shook his eardrums like a thousand furies, all calling out to him, telling him that he would not be able to escape his fate for long.

_Murderer. Murderer._

He tried to shake the image of that boy from his mind, but he couldn’t.

*     *     *

 He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t _fucking_ believe it.

Except he could.

Derek stood blinking in the glare of the early morning sun, staring at the empty spot in which he had parked his _Camaro_ the night prior. Birds and squirrels chirped cheerfully in the treetops surrounding the lot, as if they, along with the rest of the world, had been assembled to laugh at him and the latest notch in his belt of abysmal failures.

_It would just kill you to finish something you started._

Derek tried to swallow the bile that was rising in the back of his throat. He tried to tell himself that he didn’t care – hell, he should have seen this coming. He’d left New Mexico for two things: to find Scott and to protect Stiles.

It only made sense that he had somehow managed to lose track of not only both, but also now his car, the cash in his wallet, and whatever was left of his dignity.

It was time to pack up and go home. Wherever that was these days. He’d given it his best, but, as always, it amounted to little. Because his best wasn’t worth half a damn. Just like he wasn’t.

Of course that meant that he’d have to call Sheriff Stilinski and tell him that he had let Stiles slip away from him in the middle of the night.

Derek could only imagine that the Sheriff would then ask questions about why and how Stiles and gotten away from him. And the only thing Derek dreaded more than actually trying to find a way to catch Stiles was explaining the details surrounding the escape to his father.

Then there was the third, most appealing, and unobjectively most irresponsible option: He could do neither. He could call an _Uber_ , get to a car dealership, change his phone number and put Washington State, Scott, Stiles, and his promise to Sheriff Stilinski behind him without another word.

_That’s it, walk away. It’s what you’re best at, isn’t it?_

Stiles words, although spouted in a bitter drunken rage, were nonetheless true.

He trudged back to the empty motel room to gather the rest of his things and check out, leaving the woodland spectators to continue to enjoy the joke that was his life.

As he picked up his belt and stray change that had fallen from his pockets off the dingy carpet, his mind trickled back to the dozens of conversations he’d had with Stiles about Scott over the past several days. Conversations might be a bit too generous of a word for them, though. Arguments would be a more honest way to describe them.

He knew Stiles was wrong in how obsessive he was being in his pursuit. He hated how Stiles thought he, if he just kept pushing hard enough, would somehow be able to turn back time. Make everything right again.

Life didn’t work that way.

But at the same time, it was also the thing that Derek liked best about him. How he, no matter how bleak things seemed, always managed to think that there was some way that he could make it better. He would leave no stone unturned. He wouldn’t give up until he had exhausted every single option and then he’d invent new options to exhaust. Especially if it were for the people he cared about.

He knew that part of Stiles refusal to give in was about him refusing to accept what happened. As long as Stiles could obsess about Scott’s absence, he could continue to ignore the fact that the rest of his friends were buried under four feet of rubble. He talked a lot of crap about how Scott was “running” from what happened – but wasn’t this crusade Stiles’s own escape from it?

Some of what drove Stiles was selfish. But some of it was just that he believed in himself enough to think he could help the people that he loved. He wasn’t so paralyzed with the idea of failure that he wouldn’t try. He didn’t let the fact that he wasn’t perfect get in the way of him having hope that he could do something worthwhile.

No matter how many times Stiles fucked up, he never just packed it in and went home. Not when the fate of people he loved was on the line.

Within the dirty fibers of the carpet, Derek’s fingers found several shiny white buttons. He knew instantly that they belonged to the crisp white shirt that had been torn open on their way into the room last night.

He’d wanted to be close to Stiles so badly it hurt. It had felt so close. For a few moments Derek had indulged himself in the belief that he could actually have something good for once. That maybe there was a person that he could actually help.

But Stiles didn’t want his help. Stiles didn’t want to be with him – if he had he wouldn’t have said all the things he’d said last night.

Or would he?

Derek rubbed the smooth button between his fingers, recalling all the times he had pushed people away when all he wanted was for them to come closer. All the times he’d ran and actually wanted to be found. All of the dumb things he’d said and done to push people out when he was hurting and needed help. When he needed someone to shake him and tell him to stop what he was doing.

Maybe Stiles had gone over the line in his obsessing about Scott and refusing to allow him an inch of space to grieve. Maybe he was chasing Scott for at least _some_ of the wrong reasons.

He was _definitely_ over the line in refusing to accept the things he couldn’t change.

But maybe Derek was too far on the _other_ side of that line.

Was the reason his life seemed doomed to repeat the same abysmal track of failure over and over again just because he _chose_ to let it?

Was he just as blind and just as stubborn as Stiles taking off in the middle of the night like a jackass?

After all, Scott and Stiles were both running from the same thing: a pile of bodies under a burnt and broken house.

And wasn’t that something that Derek knew better than anyone else?

He squeezed the button in his hand tightly.

There was no reason he couldn’t go after Stiles. No reason that he couldn’t at least _try_ to help him.

*     *     *

Heavy drops of rain crashed and splattered down across the asphalt. Their sulfurous scent slipped in through the small crack in the window and curled through the vehicle.

The sirens had fallen back behind a low soundscape of the wind rustling through heavy hemlock branches. Dark shapes loomed just beyond the short ray of their headlights. Shadows of tall narrow trees and jagged rocks warped and twisted into demonic forms around them. Dancing like devils with the souls of the restless dead.

It had been an hour since the headlights of another pair of travelers had pierced the thick blanket of darkness that shrouded the mountainside. They were close to the stars, but not so much as a sliver of light managed to slip down to the winding road before them.

Beside the low rush of air and Theo’s tempered breath beside him, it was dead silent. And in the lapse of sound Scott could hear the dying moans and shirking cries of everyone that had been left behind. He’d been too late to hear them himself, but their imagined sounds had become such a fixture in his mind they were beginning to feel more real than his actual memories.

His knuckles were white as they gripped the steering wheel.

It was like it had just happened. All over again. _  
_

_Murderer._

That one word uttered from the lips of Liam’s doppelganger eclipsed all else. All of the hope that had been struggling to grow inside him from his morning conversation with Jennifer Kiely’s mother was snuffed out. Strangled before it even had the chance to be born.

His spare hand was still twisted tightly in the hem of Theo’s jacket. Because despite the miles put between themselves and the hunters, Scott still felt the jaws of death closing in them. It’s minions whirling closer in the dark.

They would never be satisfied. They’d taken everything. They’d left Theo because they thought Scott didn’t care about him, but they were wrong. He did care. And now that the devils had been made aware of that they would stop at nothing to take him too.

But they couldn’t have him.

Scott would not let them drag Theo into the steps of their dance.

Not if he could help it.

*     *     *

Theo didn’t move an inch in his seat. The sweat had dried on the back of his neck, his bones had knitted themselves back together, and the bullet hole in his arm had sealed. His eyes were locked on Scott.

They’d lost the hunters a while ago. They’d sped off in whatever direction the roads lead, took turns without any regard to where it would send them. About thirty minutes ago they’d found their way into a large and ancient preserve.

Theo’d considered reaching for his phone and pulling up the GPS, but he was doubtful they’d get a signal in the storm and deep wilderness. Besides, he was reluctant to disturb Scott’s grip on him.

As he contemplated it, he was struck by just how much he actually didn’t _care_ at all where they were going or about getting back on track.

He didn’t care how long it took them to find Quinten Doherty’s house. He didn’t care if they ever figured out why that strange man had a load of dead people worming around in the back of his shitty truck. He didn’t care how Jennifer Kiely died, or who killed her, or about stopping it from happening to anyone else.

But he cared about the painful silence that had fallen in the car. And he cared about the hand that was holding a knotted bunch of denim by his chest.

He couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t been scared when he watched those two cars fly into the lot and flank Scott. In that split second, when the lot erupted in gunfire, he’d been terrified. Like he was in the car too. Like _his own_ life was about to end.

He squinted in the dark at Scott’s face, the details of which were lit only by the small flickering reflections of the car lights off the road.

Scott was far from okay. There was an almost manic look in his eyes. The fight had rattled him in some way and there was a heavy and stressed silence between them as there had been in their first few days on the road together.

Theo longed to break that silence, but wasn’t sure how.

If he tried to ply the fingers from his jacket and gave Scott his palm to hold instead, would he let him? If he let him, would that give the fallen Alpha wolf what he needed? Or would it be another empty gesture? Just a poor and shallow imitation of comfort and reassurance, devoid of any real meaning.

If he were someone else, anyone else, then he might be able give Scott something real and solid. But his own touch? His own hands couldn’t do anything but take. He could pretend to give, of course, but it would be nothing more than a faux-comfort, a way to cloak the fact that he was actually there, _leeching_.

Because he didn’t really care about Scott or Scott’s pain. He only cared about himself. His own loneliness, his own need for comfort and protection. Yes, it was strange to admit that he wanted those things after long accepting that he didn’t….or _shouldn’t_ , but just because he wanted them for himself, didn’t mean he’d be able to give them to another.

He was the same selfish person he’d always been. Except torture at Tara’s hands had made him weaker. Needier. Now he was sad and vulnerable and pathetic.

It didn’t mean that he was suddenly able to care about another person.

But…if all of that were true, and he only wanted to ease Scott’s brooding emotions for his own benefit, then why wasn’t fake comfort good enough? Why did he find that idea so deeply revolting?

He swallowed and his fingers curled into a fist by his side as the hard, painful, but inevitable truth began to grip him.

He _did_ want to help Scott. He wanted to speak to him without a hidden agenda, he wanted to ease his pain the way Scott was able to soothe his. To return the unexpected shelter that Scott put over his head every time it seemed danger was near.

But he couldn’t. Because there was something missing inside him and there always had been. The thing that had made it impossible for his family to love him once they noticed it was absent. The hole in him that the Dread Doctors thought they could fill with the Beast.

The thing that made him incomplete.

He wouldn’t be able to give Scott what he needed.

He forced his eyes away from Scott and caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the window. Smooth features, empty eyes, and objectively attractive face that never depicted what he felt within. He wanted to put his first through the glass.

As the car continued to gain altitude in the mountains, the heavy plunks of raindrops on the roof were joined with the prickling clatter of hale. The road became less pavement, more rock, and a paper thin layer of snow began to crunch under their tires.

With every passing moment Theo swore he could feel something closing inside of himself. He was failing. Watching Scott drown helplessly beside him when all it would take to save him was the hand of someone that actually gave a fuck.

Scott took a turn onto a more heavily wooded road and the car swerved on a patch of sleet.

“ _Scott_!” Theo called, but Scott’s hands jerked, and the car spun.

Theo’s head knocked against the window. His vision blurred. The vehicle rocked and bounced, tree branches scratching and snapping against its sides as it flew off the road. He heard Scott swear and felt the grip on his chest tighten. There was a loud thudding sound and then they were at a dead stop. As Theo’s vision cleared he was watching small clumps of snow drift down onto the windshield.

He blinked, his ears ringing.

They had spun off the road and several yards into the dark wood. The car engine was still running but their back tires were stuck.

“ _Fuck_!” Scott swore beside him again, rapidly shifting the gears and slamming on the gas.

There was a panicked look in his eyes, like a feral cornered animal. He snapped his head back and forth, scanned the dark woods around them like he expected the hunters to spring out of the frost-dusted evergreen branches at any moment.

“Scott, _calm down_.” Theo urged, grabbing Scott’s wrist as he slammed the gears into park and killed the engine. “We lost them _hours_ ago, you’re-”

“ _Stay in the car!_ ” Scott barked at him, slapping his hand away as he unbuckled his seatbelt and jumped out into the crisp night air.

Theo was left in the front seat, listening to the dull _ding ding ding_ of the open door alarm. He craned his neck around to watch Scott through the back window as he futilely tried to dislodge the rear end of the car from whatever they were stick in.

 “ _Damn it_!” Scott nearly sobbed as he threw his weight into the car and it rocked from the force but didn’t dislodge. “ _Damn it_ …”

Scott made a choking sound, and Theo could tell he was crying even though he couldn’t see his face as his body was bent over still pushing with all his might.

Theo bit his lip and closed his eyes, leaning back into his seat.

He knew he had the words to help Scott. If he just flipped the switch, if he just let himself slip down to the cold place, he’d be able to see clearly. If he just detached himself, then Scott’s emotional map would unfold to him. He could, at least temporarily, stop this suffering.

But he didn’t want to. Because if he got Scott to open up to him, he didn’t want it to be a lie.

_I don’t want you to pretend to feel things you don’t feel._

Scott’s words, that had rattled something loose deep inside of him slowly floated to the surface of his mind.

_I want you to try to actually feel them._

Scott had been so distraught. So out of his mind with grief, and yet somehow, he had managed to not only find it within himself to give a fuck about Theo, but to say something that, for a moment, made him feel like a an actual human.

Like he wasn’t hopeless. Like he could find a way off this pre-scripted path if he searched for it.

He looked at Scott in the rear-view mirror.

_Fuck it._

Taking a deep breath, Theo pushed open the door handle. He brushed past a curtain of frost-covered spruce branches, made his way over to the door that Scott had left ajar and closed it, silencing the alarm.

He was going to try.

*     *     *

Sweat rolled down Scott’s neck. Cold air stabbed the insides of his lungs as he coughed on a small gush of tears and continued to push against the immovable object.

He should be stronger than this. Much stronger than this. He’d lifted ten times this amount of weight in the past. Yet it wouldn’t budge. He grunted and stubbornly threw his shoulder against it again. Pain riveted through him, springing from his gut where the boy had stabbed him.

It should have healed by now, but it hadn’t.

“Damn it.” He choked, for perhaps the fifth or sixth time.

The tears on his face were beginning to sting in the cold, but he didn’t stop to wipe them as he dug his feet into the ground and pushed harder and harder till one of his boots caught a frosty leaf and he slipped. He crashed painfully down onto the rocks and snow-dusted dirt below him and he felt his knee split open. A hot trickle of blood ran down his shin.

It was then that he heard the car door close and the alarm stop.

The blood in his veins turned to ice. He snapped to his feet, unsure of what he would find as he turned the corner of the vehicle.

But it was only Theo. Standing there, with his hood pulled up over his head. His hand on the door handle.

“I told you to wait in the car.” Scott said, exasperated and a bit angry.

“Yeah, I’m not doing that.” Theo said, sheathing his hands in his pockets. “Because I’m not _an eleven-year-old_.”

 “Theo, get _back_ in the damn car.” This time it came out as a growl. “It’s not safe out here.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Theo sounded exasperated as he gestured to the empty woods around them, the tall thin tree trunks and the lightly falling clumps of snow. “There’s nobody out there…”

Scott had to curl his fingers into fists to keep his claws from sliding out. He could already feel the sharp press of his fingernails cutting into his palm.

It was true that he couldn’t hear anything, or see anything, or even smell anything, but that didn’t mean that the danger wasn’t real. That it couldn’t be there, lurking. They needed to keep going, and Theo needed to shut up and wait where it was safe.

“Theo _please_ …” he meant it to come out as an appeal to reason but it came out as a deep guttural growl. “

“We’re done with this, Scott.” Theo went on, as if he didn’t notice or care that Scott’s fists were shaking. “You’re acting _insane._ I’m not sitting in the car and watching you break your hands trying to-”

Scott lunged at him. He didn’t have time to explain himself or why it was so important that Theo listen. He just needed him to do it. And he obviously wasn’t going to on his own.

“What the _fuck_ -“ Theo gasped in surprise as Scott snatched two handfuls of his shirt and wrenched him towards the car.

But Theo wouldn’t go so easily. He’d been caught off guard and yanked off his feet, but his body went quickly ridged and defiant when Scott reached for the door handle once again. He snarled at him, his arms twisting to get out of the grip. Scott growled back.

He didn’t have time for this. _They_ didn’t have time. A roar broke free from Scott’s lungs and he knocked them both to the ground in an tangled scuffle.

Theo twisted and wriggled, but even with Scott’s wounds slowing him down and grief sapping the strength from his muscles, the chimera’s body was no match for him. It was a fight, but not much of one, and soon Theo was trapped beneath him. Growling and struggling, but restrained.

“So what, you’re the big tough Alpha now?” He huffed as Scott pinned his wrists above his head. “I won’t obey so you’ll _make_ me?”

Scott froze. There was someone reflected in Theo’s eyes, and it was a stranger. It couldn’t be him. What Theo was saying…the person Theo was talking about couldn’t be himself.

The True Alpha Scott McCall, Protector of Beacon Hills would never force his will on someone else. Never try to overpower them and make them do as he said.

But that person had gotten his entire pack slaughtered.

Maybe if he’d been less understanding, less trusting, less supportive, less like himself and more like everyone else, then maybe they would still be alive.

As he stared into Theo’s dark and glassy eyes, the memory of his last and final conversation with Liam flashed before him.

_“I understand you want to go, but I need you to come with me tonight.”_

_“Oh come on, Scott!” Liam had whined. “When I agreed to that I didn’t know that this would be the last night that I have with her! She’s leaving tomorrow and I have no idea when or if I’ll ever be able to see her again…”_

_Scott chewed his lip. He knew that there was nothing really that wrong. The guidance counselor at the high school had discovered the supernatural and just needed some questions answered. She was probably scared and needed some reassuring that she and her students were still safe in the town.  
_

_Beacon Hills had been quiet all summer, and she was hardly a threat._

_But he couldn’t shake his anxiety about it._

_Something was telling him that he should take Liam with him, keep him by his side._

_“Scott, please.” Liam implored. “It’ll be fine. How about she and I hang at your house tonight and if you have any trouble then call us and we’ll both come?”_

_“Okay.” Scott finally gave in. He couldn’t say no to Liam. Couldn’t ask him to give up his last night with Hayden just for his own peace of mind. “Just, keep your senses about you, okay?”_

_“Deal.” Liam was already pulling out his phone to text his girlfriend._

_Scott glanced over his shoulder as he left his house. He contemplated asking Liam to come just one more time. Asking him to do it, just as a favor to him._

_But he didn’t. Instead he turned to face Monroe alone._

_And he never saw Liam again._

“I’m just…” Scott felt his voice was breaking. “I’m just trying to keep you alive…”

“We’re not _in danger_ right now.” Theo pointed out again.

Part of Scott knew that it was true, but it didn’t _feel_ true.

“You don’t _understand_!” he practically plead as squeezed Theo’s struggling wrists. He was almost ready to beg him just to listen.

“Then _help me_ understand!” Theo’s voice came out as a challenge, but his wrists went limp in Scott’s grip. “ _Tell me_ -”

“Tell you _what_?”  Scott demanded. “What the hell am I supposed to tell you? That I don’t want to be left holding your dying body, knowing that if I’d done something different you’d still be alive? Do you really need me to _say_ that?”

“Scott…”

“I can’t take another death on my hands!” the words broke free from Scott’s lips and he felt something wet slip down his cheek. “Okay? So, can you _please_ just wait in the car?” 

*     *     *

Theo watched as tiny flakes of snow started to gather on edges of Scott’s bare head, and tried to process a confession that made no sense.

“No.” He said after a long moment. “I won’t do that.”

“ _Why_?” Scott demanded.

“Because there’s nothing out here to protect me from, and…” Theo paused, as the honest words he wants to express tangle up on his tongue and refuse to leave his mouth. “And because...”

Scott was still staring down at him, watching his lips struggle.

_Because I don’t want to sit by and watch you hurt yourself_. He wants to say. _Because I think I might actually be starting to care..._

“Because what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense.” Was all he was able to finally force out. “ _You_ aren’t responsible for _anyone’s_ death...”

“The hell I’m not…” Scott argued, his hands trembling. “I couldn’t protect them. I couldn’t save them. Liam, my mom, they were targeted because of me. I told them that I’d always be there for them, that I’d keep them safe, but I’m a _liar_. A liar and a _killer_.”

“You are _neither_ of those things!” Theo shot back, almost offended by the idea.

Did Scott _really_ believe that?

“I get that you feel guilty, that you wished you could have helped them...”

“No you don’t.” Scott interrupted him. “You have _no idea_ what I feel...”

That was probably true, but Theo wasn’t going to take the bait.

“Look, take it from someone that knows a thing or two about _both_ lies and murder...”

“Don’t...” Scott interrupted him again, sniffing and swallowing a sob. “Don’t try to brush this off or act like _I’m_ wrong about this. I know I’m not.”

“Scott.” Theo said firmly. “People that lie and kill, they choose to do the things they do. I _chose_ to do the things I did. And I’ll have to live with that blood on my hands for the _rest_ of my life…”

“Do you feel guilty about it?”

“I...” Theo faltered, again put on the defensive by the blunt question. “I try not to think about it...”

“You should.” Scott said firmly, and Theo felt a surge of anger flare up in his gut.

Now Scott was the one that didn’t understand. He couldn’t possibly understand what he was suggesting. The kinds of things he’d done weren’t the kinds of things you sat and reflected on. They were the kinds of things you locked up in a box and buried so deep no one could find them.

“Yeah, easy for you to say.” Theo spat. “You’re a wreck and you didn’t even actually _kill_ anyone!”

“You can’t just _run_ from things because they hurt to look at!” Scott yelled at him. “You’re never going to change if you don’t...”

 “Scott, I’m not _ever_ going to change!” Theo found himself sliding off track in spite of himself, the direction of the conversation slipping away from him as his blood boiled over in anger. “I’ve always been like that!”

“No, you weren’t.” Scott insisted. “You weren’t always like that...”

Theo paused. He wants it to be true, but he isn’t sure that is.

“I know you weren’t...” Scott went on, his voice softening.

“Even If that were true...” Theo said slowly and still unconvinced. “There’s no forgetting or going back from what I did...”

“You were a child.” objected, and Theo felt his the pressure of on his wrists tighten. “A baby…”

 Theo let out short bitter laugh.

“I was nine.” He corrected. “I wasn’t a fucking baby.”

“A child. You were a child.”

“I still knew better.”

“You were half the age I was when I was bitten.” Scott insisted. “But I had someone that was there with me, for everything. You didn’t have that. You were small, and you were all alone. Up against things that were older and stronger and...”

Theo swallowed. There was a lump growing in his throat as Scott stared down at him. He didn’t know what to think about that. He didn’t know what to say when Scott looked at him like that and said things like that.

But he also couldn’t examine it.

This wasn’t about him. It was about Scott.

“You say I’m running from things because they hurt...” he started up again. “But how is what you’re doing any better?”

“I’m not running from-” Scott started, but Theo cut him off.

“You’re running from anything that will make you put this behind you.” He accused.  “Do you not see how fucked up it is? You’re willing to see past all the shit I did on purpose, but not forgive yourself for something you didn’t even _do_?”

“I don’t deserve forgiveness.”

“But _I_ do?” Theo demanded.

“You need it.”

Theo had to stuff down and ignore the squeezing sensation in his chest that sent off.

“ _Yo_ u need it.” He turned Scott’s word’s back on him. “Why _the fuck_ would I deserve it and not you?”

“I…” Scott started, searching for an argument that did not exist.

“You didn’t kill them.” Theo said firmly. “No matter how fucked up you’re feeling about it, and how much you wish you could have stopped it from happening, you still didn’t kill them. You _know_ it’s true. If someone else was in your position, would you call them a _killer_?”

“No...” Scott whispered. “Of course not...”

“Then what are you doing this for?

Scott’s grip loosened. Theo watched his breath leave his lips and turn into thin wisps of steam in the cold air.

Theo opened his mouth to say more, but stopped when he felt something warm trickling down his stomach. He glanced down and saw a grisly streak of red blood, leaking from Scott’s shirt down onto his own.

He pushed Scott off of him and quickly reached for the hem of his shirt. Scott didn’t stop him. He leaned back against the wheel of the stuck SUV and let Theo ply open the sticky fabric. Theo’s eyes widened as they perceived a deep gash still open and leaking.

“You’re still bleeding?” he whispered, and hurried to his feet. “You need stitches...”

He should have realized it sooner. The fresh smell of blood hadn’t gone stale in their time on the road. But Scott’s misery should have been his first clue.

Werewolves couldn’t heal properly if they didn’t let themselves.

*     *     *

Scott leaned his head back against the tire and listened to the sound of Theo rummaging through the back of the SUV. Watched the thin wisps of his breath evaporate before him against the backdrop of pointed snow-crusted treetops cutting into the starless sky.

Theo was right. They really were all alone.

There was no lurking threat, no dogs snapping at their heels. At least not in this moment. The only person Theo needed protection from was the madman that had run their car off the road and screamed at him in the dark.

When Theo returned to his side, breaking open a first aid kit and sorting through its contents, Scott was still grappling with his words.

_You didn’t kill them._

It was such a simple, stupid sentence. An obvious fact that he had refused to believe, but when spoken on the lips of another, was difficult to refute.

Maybe Theo was right. As hard as it was to admit, and as much as he wanted to punish himself, there was truth in what Theo was saying.

It didn’t make everything better. It didn’t diminish the crushing weight of his loss or make his guilt disappear, but something in his chest had dislodged.

He watched as Theo quickly threaded a needle and uncapped a bottle of antiseptic.

“Let me…” Scott said, reaching for the bottle, but Theo quickly moved it out of his reach.

“No.” he insisted. “It’ll be easier for me to do it, and I’m probably better at this than you, anyway…”

Scott thought about pushing him away. He easily could. He could even say that it was because he didn’t trust Theo near his wound. It would be fair, but it would also be a lie.

He leaned back as Theo carefully began to clean out the gash.

“You do know I’m an assistant to a veterinarian?” he asked as he felt Theo’s smooth fingertips press gently against his skin, holding the gap closed as he readied the needle. “I do stitches all the time...you can’t be _that much_ better at it than me...”

“Yeah, well I was raised by doctors.” Theo countered, not lifting his head or meeting Scott’s eyes as he pulled the cold needle through his skin.

Scott had no idea if that was supposed to be a joke, but even if it was he wouldn’t find it funny. Nothing about Theo, small and malleable in the hands of the Dread Doctors would ever be funny to him.

Snow was starting to crust the top of Theo’s hair and the tips of his ears were turning pink in the cold, but his fingers were careful and efficient as they slowly laced up the torn flesh.

The last time he’d been stitched up, a very different pair of hands had been the ones pulling the thread. Allison’s fingers were small and delicate, they’d trembled and shook but her fierce determination would not allow her to quit.

As his mind drifted, his hand unconsciously reached out and brushed the flakes from Theo’s hair.

Theo’s fingers froze mid-stitch. His eyes darted upwards to meet Scott’s gaze. For a half instant Scott felt embarrassed, until he saw something in the green and azure flecks of the steel blue irises that he was certain Theo hadn’t intended to show.

For a moment, the deepest and most desperate desires of Theo’s fragmented soul were open to him. The things he longed for, the needs he concealed, all of them laid out before him, legible in perfect detail before his eyes.

And then they were gone. Theo quickly averted his gaze, cast his eyes back down to the wound, a rush of horror on his face knowing that he’d revealed too much. A card shark that had fumbled his hand.

Scott quickly removed his hand and placed it back by his side. His mind reeling.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts and constructive comments are always welcome!
> 
> The next chapter will be up very soon! It's already like 90% written.


	5. Chapter 5

Scott’s mind was whirling.

Theo’s adept fingers swiftly finished the last stitch and tied the row off with a perfect surgical knot.

He was still trying to wrap his head around what he’d just seen as Theo hurried to his feet and pulled his hood back over his head.

“I’m going to take a look at the tires.” He muttered, attempting a casual and offhand tone.

A few moments ago Scott might have taken Theo’s tone at face value, but now that he’s had gotten a glimpse of what lay beneath Theo’s well-crafted mask he could easily hear the embarrassed twangs of emotion that lay underneath the current of his words. 

He slowly got to his feet and followed Theo around to the rear of the car.

The wind whistled around him, lifting and swirling the dusty flakes around his feet as he followed Theo’s footsteps.

He watched Theo grip the back bumper and try to dislodge the car from the crevasse.

There was a stiffness in his posture. As he struggled to free the object, his moves were laced with the faux bravado, like an animal that knew it was on display. Struggling to conceal its terror and humiliation in having revealed a secret weakness to its predator.

As Scott watched, his fingers slid over the clean seam of Theo’s labor.

Much like the creamer and sugar that had been stirred into his coffee that morning, the change for tolls that had been counted out and placed in his hands for the past several days, the small talk that were constantly pulling him back from the edge of oblivion, they had been executed with care and precious attention to detail.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, and yet it was.

The look in Theo’s eyes right before he’d disappeared into the convenience store flashed in Scott’s mind. The spiked heart rate, the sudden pause in his breath. He’d chosen to read them as fear because it made it easier for him to hate himself. It was more convenient than seeing them for what he knew they really were. 

It was easier to push down the feelings that welled up inside him when he watched Theo recline his tired body down on cheap motel beds if it was nothing more than a one-sided yearning. Easier to ignore the stirring in his bones when he caught the soft scent of Theo’s skin as he stepped out of the shower if it was only a selfish and unrequited desire.

He hadn’t seen the truth in Theo’s desperate symptoms because he hadn’t wanted to.

But now he’d seen them unclothed before his eyes, he could no longer pretend that they didn’t exist.

The wind blew harder and brought with it the first dense drops of what was sure to be another heavy fall of rain and sleet. Theo shivered and swore as he threw his weight against the car.

Scott quickly took a place beside him, slid his hands under the cold metal next to Theo’s. The wind began to whistle and howl in his ears. The rain fell harder, piercing the backs of their necks like the sharp stab of icicles.

He turned his head to face Theo as the car began to move, but Theo wouldn’t meet his eyes. He kept his face turned down, coughing from the cold and the exertion.

By the time the car had been pushed onto the even ground of the forest floor, rain and snow was freezing Scott’s hair together at the tips.

He still had no idea what to do or say next. He knew he wanted to move closer, but wasn’t sure if he should.

“Theo-” he started, reaching for his arm, but Theo brushed him off.

“We can get back on the road if you want.” Theo muttered. “I can drive...”

Scott wished he would look at him.

“I don’t think the road is safe.” He said softly.

“You want to wait here?” Theo asked, staring out into the bleak snowy darkness.

Everything in his posture indicated that he wanted to curl in on himself and hide.

“Just till the storm passes.” Scott insisted.

“Sure.” Theo said as he turned away and reached for the door handle, careful to keep his eyes cast away as he entered.

Scott climbed into the driver’s seat beside him. He tried to keep his eyes straight ahead as he fired up the engine and flipped on the defroster, but his gaze soon wandered and he was watching Theo rub his hands together and place them over the hot air radiating from the dashboard vents.

Theo began to slowly pull small clumps of melting ice from his hair. His fingers moving in a way that recalled memories of how he’d picked at his scabs many years ago when they were first learning to skateboard.

It was so easy to want to protect him. And it was easy to want to do more. Too easy.

Sensing his eyes on him, Theo shifted awkwardly.

“We don’t have any spare clothes.” Theo broke the silence abruptly. “All our stuff was in the Civic.”

“Theo-” Scott started again slowly.

Theo’s back stiffened.

“Listen-” Theo started, a defensive bitterness rippling in his veins.

Whatever Theo was about to say, Scott was certain that it was going to be a lie.

He had that air about him, the one reserved for diverting and denying.

In that one glimpse into Theo’s eyes, Scott had seen how hard Theo’d been pushing himself to feel and explore things that he’d long been conditioned to avoid. Things the Dread Doctor’s had done their best to carve out of him.

In their time on the road together, Theo had been slowly unfolding. Growing, learning, trying for possibly the first time in years to become something better than what he’d been. Allowing himself to want things that terrified him.

Theo froze the second their skin connected. Scott could feel the nerves in his body. The tension buzzing beneath his skin as he slowly and unsurely lifted his eyes to meet Scott’s again.

He held Scott’s gaze for a long moment. Not speaking, but not pulling away.

They’d been here before, Scott suddenly realized. This morning when they’d left High Falls. In the convenience store parking lot only a few hours ago. Probably a dozen other times in the past week.

This was the part where Scott was supposed to let him go. To let them both retreat back into themselves. To deny everything that had been growing between them, and force it back under the surface.

For the sake of the dead. For the sake of their past. For the sake of their guilt.

But he couldn’t.

Because despite his every effort to stay cold and empty in the ashes of desolation, he couldn’t stop the small flickering flame of hope that lit in his chest every time he felt Theo’s eyes softened in his gaze.

He tried to tell himself he didn’t deserve that hope, but he was tired of dousing that flame.

He couldn’t, and he didn’t want to.

He tugged Theo closer. Listened to the sound of him take in a quick breath.

Theo’s eyes darted down and then quickly back up. Unasked questions burning in the green flecks of his irises.

“Don’t...” Scott started, slowly. “Don’t lie to me right now.”

“I wasn’t-” Theo started, defensively but Scott cut him off.

“ _Please_.” Scott implored, squeezing Theo’s elbow gently. “I need you to not lie to me right after all those things you just said.”

Theo looked at him for a long moment, before he swallowed and then slowly nodded his head.

“What you said to me earlier...” Scott pressed him. “Why did you say it?”

He could feel Theo’s doubt and anguish as if it were his own, coursing through him where their bare flesh touched. The desperation of an actor that had run out of lines. The shame of a dog with no more tricks left to please it’s master.

He wanted to lie, but Scott could feel him fighting the urge. Fighting because he’d asked him to.

He rubbed his thumb slowly against Theo’s cold skin.

“Please.” Scott whispered. “Tell me.”

“You...” Theo said, painfully. “You already _know_ why.”

He did know. He’d known for a while, even if he couldn’t admit it.

Somehow, in the shadows of his darkest days, with his soul washed up and twisted on the brutal rocks of failure, weakened and worn, entirely unspectacular, somehow _this_ had happened.

“Please,” Theo begged, his voice cracking. “Please, don’t make me say it.”

Scott didn’t need to make him say it.

The howling voices of the dead called to him in the silence as he brought his mouth to Theo’s lips, but he ignored them.

He wasn’t sure he could ever move on from what happened, that the voices would ever quiet or release him from his torment, but neither could he stop the burning rush inside himself as their lips connected. Or the soothing relief of Theo’s gasp sucking the air from his mouth. 

 

*     *     *

Theo couldn’t breathe.

Scott’s lips were moving against his, firm but gentle. Decisive and deliberate.

It couldn’t be real. Scott couldn’t want this. He couldn’t possibly want this.

But as he felt Scott’s warm breath enter his lungs and the protective press of his fingertips on his scalp, the idea that this was some kind of trick became increasingly difficult to believe.

That wasn’t Scott. He didn’t lie like that.

Scott could look at someone twisted and broken and _wrong_ in every way and still not think that person was worth discarding. He could see hurt where there was only coldness. Could feel sympathy when none was deserved.

Theo could taste hunger and compassion on his tongue as his lips parted and Scott deepened the kiss.

Scott wouldn’t do this if he didn’t want to.

There was a rushing in Theo’s ears as he reached for the sides of Scott’s neck with his cold fingers and pulled him closer.

Scott’s skin was so warm it practically burned against icy palms, but he didn’t seem to mind. He sucked Theo’s lip between his teeth, his fingers twisting into the damp strands of his hair.

When Theo moved, it was as if all of the grace and carefully refined control had fled his limbs. He clumsily pulled at Scott’s body and pushed the heavy jacket off his shoulders, eager to get closer. To feel the warmth of Scott against him.

The moment Scott’s arms were free of the leather sleeves they wrapped around Theo’s back. Squeezing him tightly as their mouths desperately chased one another.

But then Scott broke their lips apart.

Confused and breathing heavily, Theo cautiously peered into Scott’s eyes.

Had he done something wrong? Why did Scott look like he was suddenly uncertain?

Scott held his gaze for a moment, then glanced pointedly into the back seats, and then back at him.

Theo’s heart slammed in his chest, even before Scott opened his mouth.

“Do you want-”

“ _Yes_.” He breathed quickly, not waiting for Scott to finish the question.

His knuckles twisted into the front of Scott’s shirt, Scott’s fingers dug into Theo’s arms, and they clambered into the back.

The center row of seats had been removed, and the floor was littered with boxes of survival gear and ammunition.

Scott’s arm swiped the scattered items on the floor, clearing a small space just before Theo’s back hit the smooth ridges of the rubber mat that lined it.

The light pitter patter of raindrops that danced along the rooftop grew to a low roar as freezing rain and hail hammered down around them. Masking the groan that left Theo’s lips as he was crushed between the floor and the weight of Scott’s body.

 

*     *     *

Reservations crumbled within Scott. The low sound of Theo’s moan sent heat rippling up his core and spiraling down through his limbs. Theo’s skin was wet and ice cold, but every new press of it against his own fed the smoldering fire deep within him 

Theo’s touch wasn’t confident like Allison’s nor was it timid like Kira’s. It was impulsive and desperate. With every motion he moved to pull Scott closer, as if he were afraid that if he let even small amount of space grow between them they’d be swept apart.

His arms snug around Scott’s back, his thighs hugging his hips, Theo squeezed Scott so hard he felt the strength and shape of every muscle in his body.

He could feel the raw gaping lacerations in Theo’s soul, the hunger of his touch-starved skin, the aching tension in his bones. It roused the wolf within him, shaking it from its slumber.

The pure absence of any hesitation made it easy for Scott to fall into and forget everything except the rhythmic beating of Theo’s heart against his own and the raw unguarded need Theo was showing him for the first time.

The wind howled louder outside. It pushed against the windows and rattled them in their metal frames as Theo’s heavy breath prickled along his skin.

Scott could feel the gaze of his demons moving in on them, angry for the attention he wasn’t paying them as he reached for the clasp of Theo’s belt. Their fingernails rapped impatiently on the dark glass as he tugged it open.

Theo’s fingertips slipped beneath his shirt and up his sides, the cautious touch a contrast to the fierce pressure building everywhere else. Scott shuddered at the gentle brushes that both sought and offered comfort.

He captured Theo’s lips between his teeth. Theo shivered.

An urgency began to weave it’s way through Scott’s body as the light clatter of hale on the roof grew into a heavy roar. Like if he didn’t act now, this moment might pass them by, and his demons would never allow him this chance again.

He yanked Theo’s wet shirt off and tossed it to the side, then ducked his head as Theo’s hands moved up his chest to liberate him from his own. Theo’s lips met his mouth the moment they were free of the restrictive damp fabric.

Nails dug deeper into flesh. Bags and boxes were knocked heedlessly as they rolled across the floor and the remainder of their clothes were lost in the growing mess around them.

*     *     *

 The heat of Scott’s body pressing into him, the hungry but careful way Scott’s teeth pricked his neck, it felt nothing like Theo had imagined, and yet, they were somehow everything he’d wanted them to feel like.

The gentle commanding grip of Scott’s hands on him stoked a rippling sensation within him that he’d previously struggled to even fantasize about.

He’d reached for something like it when he’d touched himself in the shower that morning, but the best he’d been able to conjure was heady thoughts of Scott holding him down the hotel floor and rutting him – himself panting on carpet like half-breed bitch in heat. 

He hadn’t been able to imagine the actual feeling of Scott’s hands on him, warm and protective. The intimate hunger that simmered beneath Scott’s skin, pervading his every move. The  grounding sensation of Scott’s arms circling his waist – they gave just as much as they asked.

_Please don’t stop..._ was all he could think. _Just please don’t pull away..._

He couldn’t shake the fear that this could dissolve at any moment. That Scott would suddenly change his mind.

Realize that he was too good for this.

But as their clothes were lost in the mess of dirty rags and shotgun shells, their mouths and hands beginning to move across one another more liberally, he could feel himself becoming increasingly attuned to Scott’s needs.

He could feel Scott’s desperation growing to match his own. The more Theo sucked at Scott’s skin, the more Scott would pull and paw at his body. The bolder Theo’s touches grew, the stronger Scott’s grip on him tightened.

“ _Scott_...” he breathed, his fingers digging into the Alpha’s lower back, pulling him closer as, for a brief moment, his anxieties surrendered 

*     *     *

Adrenaline surged through Scott’s core as Theo, lips brushing against his collarbone, whispered his name.

He’d become accustomed to hearing Theo call for him. It had become his beacon, a flare in the blackest night. The noise that broke him from the grasp of ghosts in their endless hours on the road. The sound that, in the heat of danger, gave him the strength to move. 

He’d come to crave hearing it.

He had to hear it again. Had to have more. The confirmation of need. The teasing promise of the road that lay after.

He needed it.

“ _Theo_...” he returned the pleading whisper.

He pulled Theo onto his side so he could bury his nose into the back of his scalp, breath in the mellow pleasing scent of his damp hair. 

Theo leaned back, pressing his shoulders to Scott’s chest. Scott could feel his heart thudding heavily through his back as he slotted their hips together.

*     *     *

With little more than saliva to dull the tight burn, the first push in was slow and slightly painful. The sensation of it, along with the first few thrusts threatened to bring back memories of the handful of times Theo’s done it previously.

Much like his previous encounters with girls they had been not for the sake of his own enjoyment, and the experience had been less than pleasant. Quick, dirty, and duplicitous in nature, he’d tolerated the unwanted press of flesh because it served his purposes.

But he pushed those thoughts aside.

He had no idea if Scott would push him away in disgust when this was over. There was no guarantee that he would ever feel this safe and wanted and _human_ again. 

And he didn’t want his mind anywhere but in the moment.

He let the feel of Scott’s hot breath on his neck banish the budding nervous goosebumps that had begun to crawl along his skin. Let the wholesome woodsy scent of Scott’s sweat exorcise the whiffs of cheap cigarettes, damp clothes, and gasoline that surrounded them.

He pulled Scott’s arm tighter around his waist, and leaned back into him.

Soon the pain subsidized and the gentle rocking within him began to build into a heated pleasure. His skin prickled and his breath grew ragged as the motions gained momentum. Their surroundings fell away and all he could feel was the growing friction inside him and the loud beating of Scott’s heart against his back.

He could feel Scott’s torment untangling and his own anxieties draining from his body as they fell deeper and deeper into one another.

Theo’s head knocked roughly into the car door. He hardly noticed it, but Scott did.

He pulled Theo back around to face him. They twisted and wrapped around one another.

Theo bit down as the thrusts became harder. Tension coiled up in his core. He could feel his release upon him, driven closer and closer to the edge with each feverish push, when he saw a small streak of red on Scott’s skin.

“ _Your-_ ” he gasped, putting his hand on Scott’s shoulder to slow his motions. “ _Your stitches_...”

His fingers slipped down to find the loosened seem starting to unravel, hot red blood brimming along their white edges.

Scott slowed his movement, but Theo could feel his reluctance to do so.

He looked Theo in the eyes, and Theo had to fight the urge to look away.

The piercing stair of Scott’s dark eyes while he still pulsed and throbbed inside him was so intimate it was nearly impossible for Theo the bear.

“ _You’ll_...” Scott panted, hardly able to get the words out. “ _You’ll fix them_.”

It wasn’t a question. Just a statement of fact that they both already knew to be true.

Theo nodded and let his head fall backwards. Failing to hold back moans as Scott’s self-restraint collapsed.

*     *     *

It was like coming in from a cold winter’s storm and sinking into a hot bath. The aching and brittle bones in Scott’s body, that only a few hours ago felt like they would never regain their strength, were vibrating within him.

The small stabs of pain in his core were insignificant to the waves of pleasure that coursed through him with each spasm and squeeze of Theo’s body around him. Sweat rolled down his neck, his palm was slippery in Theo’s but nothing could break the tight grip with which they held one another.

When he finally collapsed down onto Theo he released a long breath, and for the first time since he they left Beacon Hills, he felt at ease. He let the dead weight of his body moved slowly up and down with the rise and fall of Theo’s chest beneath him, and for several long moments, he felt nothing but bliss.

*     *     *

It was amazing. Once Derek had committed to the fact that he wasn’t walking away, that giving up wasn’t an option, everything seemed easier. 

It probably wasn’t _actually_ any easier. The challenges were still there, they just didn’t matter as much to him as they normally would.

Stiles had several hours on him. Derek could only assume that he’d gotten another notification of Scott using his credit card and taken off in that direction. Derek had no way of tracking Scott’s credit card, unless he wanted to call Stiles’ father and ask for his help, which would require a _very_ awkward conversation.

He needed to catch up to Stiles fast, or else this would end up just as fruitless as chasing Scott.

And he’d prefer to do it without having to call Sheriff Stilinski and risk having to explain very awkwardly _why_ Stiles had disappeared in the middle of the night.

Thankfully, he did have one serious advantage. Since Stiles had decided to steal his car, Derek knew _exactly_ where he was.

Because, despite the fact that Stiles seemed to view him as an _ancient_ twenty-six year old as well as a grunting idiot when it came to technology, Derek wasn’t actually tech illiterate.

He had a GPS tracker in his car in the likely event that it got stolen. He could watch his car make its way north along the highways of Washington State on the screen of his iPhone.

He didn’t have the time to get himself to a car rental, so he called a car service, and had them follow Stiles’ direction.

Making phone calls to any kind of transportation service was usually one of the things Derek was loathe to do. Navigating complex systems of human organization often felt frustratingly impossible to him, but he wasn’t allowed to feel that way right now.

He was only allowed to get it done.

He didn’t enjoy sitting in the backseat of the black car that came to pick him up, it made him feel like he was trapped in a cage and at this stranger’s mercy, but he stomached it.

He watched his phone until he saw a car dealership and instructed his driver to take him there.

In under an hour, Derek pulled onto the road in a brand new _Dodge Challenger_ , cranking the volume up on its sound system so he could hear the GPS directions and vivacious rhythms of his favorite driving playlist.

He was surprised and proud of himself at how quickly he’d been about to get back on the road. Everything he’d just done could have taken him a day if he’d allowed it to.

The spiteful desire to prove Stiles wrong put a fire in him, just as much as the desire to help him spurred him forward.

He was going to be the mature adult here. He was going to fix this.

With the windows rolled down, Derek let the cold air keep him awake and alert as he drove for several hours on the long and windy mountain roads.

He was starting to feel confident that he would be able to catch up, when he looked down at his phone to see that Stiles make a turn onto a less traveled road.

_No._

Following the line of the map, he could see the town that Stiles was headed to.

High Falls.

A chill rolled down his spine as he realized that must be where Scott was.

And if that were true, he, as well as Stiles, were in terrible danger. 

He slammed on the gas.

*     *     *

Theo’s eyes fluttered slowly open as the first gentle rays of the sun kissed his skin. For a moment he was unsure where he was. He rolled over, his body stiff and aching, to find himself alone in the back of the SUV.

He sat up, his heart racing.

Where was Scott?

As he looked quickly back and forth, the synthetic fabric of a dirty subzero sleeping bag slipped off his shoulders.

Right, Scott had found that in the mess of crap in the back and pulled it over them before they’d fallen asleep.

But where the hell was he?

Theo squinted in the sunlight and scanned the trees.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Scott, a short distance into the woods leaning against a think-trunked evergreen.

But his relief quickly soured.

Scott had his back to the car, he was staring at seemingly nothing.

Theo hadn’t been able to see it the night before, but it looked as though the forest ended not that far off from where Scott was standing.

Scott’s posture wasn’t tense, but it wasn’t relaxed either.

He was looking out over the mountains. Thinking.

Theo slouched backwards and cast his eyes away.

He couldn’t tell for certain what Scott was out there thinking about, but he could make a pretty well-educated guess.

He made himself busy by searching for his clothes among the wreck of items around him. As he did, he couldn’t help but think about a pair of overpriced distressed jeans he’d once bought.

They’d had a chain the looped down around his hips. He’d thought they were sexy. Then the moment he’d gotten home and tried them on in the light of his own mirror, he had no idea what had possessed him to think that he could ever wear them in public. He’d quickly taken them off, folded them up, and put them back in the bag. Never to be touched again.

That was probably how Scott felt now.

He pulled a hand through his hair, and tried not to think about this sinking sensation in his chest or the miserably awkward car ride that was surely before them.

 

*     *     *

The sun had come up less than an hour ago, and already the forest was full of the sound of melting snow softly sliding off tree branches. Dew and small drops of water fell all around Scott as he looked out over the surrounding mountain peaks and green valley below.

A light breeze of clear air licked the back of his neck, pleasantly.

He’d woken up just before dawn, with Theo’s arms clinging loosely to him.

The floor of the SUV had been hard and far from comfortable, the but the soft cushion of Theo’s body had made it a more than welcome bed and provided him with a deep and dreamless sleep.

Despite the stiffness in his muscles, he felt more rested than he had in a long time.

He didn’t feel like the storm was over or that everything was suddenly perfect and right in the world again. He didn’t not miss his mom, or Liam, or the rest of his pack.

But he did feel relief.

He knew that things would never be like they once were. There would never be a time that he didn’t carry the loss of his pack, his family, with him. But for the first time since he’d fled Beacon Hills, the weight of it felt like it may be possible to bear.

As he looked out into the early morning light, he could see more than just the dark clouds that clung to the jagged mountain peaks.

He could see the details of the ruggedly beautiful landscape before him like he hadn’t previously been able to. Could heard the sounds of the woods slowly coming to life again after the storm. Could feel the light sprinkling of wet pine and hemlock needles on his shoulders as they were loosened from the trees above him.

For the first time in a long time, he felt like himself.

He wasn’t sure what would happen next.

He didn’t know what he and Theo would find as they searched for the origin of the man and his truck full of bodies. He didn’t know why Jennifer Kiely’s brother, whom Scott now realized only looked vaguely like Liam, thought them responsible for his sister’s death.

He wasn’t sure if he should call Stiles - _actually_ call Stiles, not the poor excuses for calls he’d made previously - and try to talk to him.

He wanted to know if Stiles was okay. He wanted to hear the sound of his voice. He wanted to be there for him. But he still didn’t want to put him in danger.

He wasn’t sure what will happen next with Theo, but he was eager to find out.

He wasn’t sure what would happen tomorrow. Or the week after, or the month after.

But for the first time, he was starting to think about what might happen beyond just the coming day.

Theo’s words to him as he stitched him up – about guilt and intent. About the impossible double standard of responsibility that he held himself to and no one else.

Those words had stuck. Clung to his bones.

He slipped his hand underneath his shirt to where the stitches had been sewn, but the wound had closed. Sealed shut overnight, not leaving so much as a scab as a reminder.

_Huh._

Scott heard the car door open behind him and turned over his shoulder to see Theo stepping out, pulling a pair of boots onto his bare feet. He wasn’t wearing the clothes he’d been wearing yesterday.

In fact, Scott’s pretty sure the clothes he’s wearing now didn’t belong to him at all.

A ratty-looking heavy metal t-shirt and flannel. As Scott approached he noticed that the clothes must have been recently washed – but still carried a subtle scent of gunpowder and gasoline.

The expression on Theo’s face was nervous and sour. His hair was the messiest and most disheveled that Scott had ever seen it.

“I found some clothes in a bag in the back. They’re tasteless, but at least they’re clean.” Theo muttered, leaning down to lace up the boots. “Maybe you want to grab a fresh shirt too, just until we can get to a laundromat.”

“They don’t look so bad.” Scott couldn’t help but smirk.

There was something adorable in just how uncomfortable Theo seemed in them.

“Pff...” Theo muttered, finishing his laces and straightening up. “I look like a Good Will store.”

There was a stray lock of hair dangling in his face.

Scott smiled, and slowly brushed Theo’s bangs out of his eyes.

Theo stared at him.

“Let’s get on the road.” Scott said, and then turned away, moving to find the bag of clothes Theo’d mentioned.

Theo didn’t say anything as he watched Scott pull on another metal shirt from the bag.

“We can pick up some breakfast and wash our clothes in the first town we pass through.” Scott said as he got behind the wheel and fired up the engine. “Get you into something you like a little better.”

“Good.” Theo said, leaning back into the passenger seat. “Because I don’t think I can the Brawny Man look for more than an hour.”

Scott let out a small scoff.  Not a full laugh, but the closest thing that he’d felt leave his lips in a long time.

As they pulled onto the road, he could feel Theo beside him, thinking.

After a few moments, Theo cautiously laid his hand out on the coffee holders between them. He kept his eyes focused out the window as he did it.

Not taking his own eyes off the road, Scott took Theo’s hand. Not to take his pain, not to get his attention, not to keep him from stepping out of the car, but purely because he wanted to.

Theo’s fingers squeezed tightly around his palm in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading, I'm sorry this chapter took so long to finish.
> 
> Thoughts and constructive comments are always very much appreciated!
> 
> I will (obviously) be continuing the trilogy with both the sceo and sterek plotlines into the third part of the story. I know there wasn't a lot of progress on the sterek in these past two chapters but it had to be that way for pacing reasons - the sterek and sceo plotlines are both _far_ from over.
> 
> Make sure you're subscribed to this series to get an update for when the first chapter of The Road After Part III - Embers is up and ready. ^_^
> 
> In terms of a posting schedule I do plan to begin writing Part III soon. I'm going to first finish my project for the Sceo Secret Santa (a season 5 fic where Theo has trauma-related amnesia - I'm super excited to start posting it), and then get back to this story.  
>  
> 
> **More Scott x Theo fics by me if you're looking for more while waiting for the next part:**  
> [What Should Have Been Ours](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9862829/chapters/22131167)  
> [The Call](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11857773/chapters/26771910)  
> [21 Candles Shy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16680262/chapters/39115849)  
> [Something Borrowed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13977339/chapters/32180409)  
> [Adoption](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7802056%0A%20rel=)  
> ...and more on my [works](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonzDust/works) page.
> 
> And if you're on Tumblr I share writing, art, gifs, ideas, and take requests on [my blog](https://https://demonzdust.tumblr.com/).  
> 


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